Awakening in Our Dreams

Awakening in Our Dreams – Today is the first Sunday after our celebration of the birth of Jesus. Delivering the sermon is Chris Dean, and it is based on the story in Matthew 2 of an angel appearing to Joseph in a dream, telling him to take Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt because of the threat of Herod. Then, further in that passage, an angel appears to Joseph in another dream, telling him to take Mary and the child back to Israel because Herod had died. These dreams of Joseph follow that first dream in which an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, telling him to take the pregnant Mary as his wife, that the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In his analysis, Chris gives some background for reading the Bible “like a child,” and then he relates Joseph’s dreams in some measure to dreams most of us have had. He points out that the accounts of Joseph’s dreams in the gospel are not detailed and elaborate, and perhaps the only crucial part is that God is present and communicating through those dreams. Even when Joseph, Mary, and the child are in danger, God demonstrates the divine presence in those dreams, and that is something we should take with us. Whatever is bothering us at any point, we need to remember that God is with us.