Picture Jesus

FOR WORRY

The Gift

“Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27

In a dream, of course, you don’t know you are dreaming. It seems more like you are watching a movie you are in. In fact in some way, you play all the roles.

In the dream I first see a rock on the table in front of me. Somehow I know that this rock is my worry, that is, what I was worrying about earlier in the day when I was on the freeway. I somehow know I should name this rock. I say to it, “This rock is MY WORRY.”

I tell this rock what my worry is at that moment: my worry is that my mind is blank about what I should write for a sermon for Sunday because all the day has been filled with freeways and office work, Jack in the hospital which was frightening, and a funeral.

It was as if I was writing a script in the dream; I knew that I should describe the rock. Is it a little, smooth, flat stone, the kind you might skip across the lake? Is it big…and jagged, full of sharp edges and dangerous points that stick out? Is it pretty like conglomerate or shale or a precious stone or marble? Or is it common, the color of ordinary dirt? It is gray and common and big enough to knock a hole in a skull.

I pick it up in my hands and feel how heavy it is. In the dream with no such thing as weight, the act seems meaningful to me. I put it down again.

Next to the rock on the table is a box that is just a little bit bigger than my rock. It is an ordinary box…not new…old…but not dilapidated…strong. The box has a top to it that I can lift off. I do; I lift off the top of the box. The box is empty. I foolishly put my head inside and see that the box is empty.

I pick up the rock again. I call it by its name again. I call it “MY WORRY.” Now I put the rock in the box and put the top on the box. I can’t see my rock anymore, of course. No, now it is completely covered by the box.

I look across the table. There is somebody sitting on the other side of the table looking at me. He is smiling. It is Jesus.

What does he have in his hands? It’s a box. But it doesn’t look like my box. It’s a package. It’s all wrapped up like a gift. Like a birthday gift. Very frilly paper and ribbon. The kind you’d decorate for your best friend’s birthday party when you are little.

Jesus puts his package, his gift, on the table in front of him. Then he smiles and pushes it halfway across the table toward me. He stops. Then he says to me, “Give me your package, and I will give you my package.”

I say to myself, “Why does Jesus want my rock? Doesn’t he know there’s only a rock in this box?” I push my box toward Jesus, and he pushes his box toward me. We trade boxes.

He doesn’t look in my box. He says, “Open my package.” I take off the lid. I look inside. He says, “It’s a gift.” I know what it is, don’t you? I know it’s grace.

I look in the box. What do I see? What shape is it? What color is it? I reach into the box and lift it out. How big is it? How heavy is it? Is it soft, like cotton…or a cloud, or spun sugar that you buy at the carnival? I lift it up to my nose and smell it. What does it smell like? Flowers, strawberries, the earth, a cool wind? So much to remember about it. I remember the questions but not the answers. In my dream I put it on my chest…and I push it through my skin…into my heart.

I have a little left on my fingers. I put it on my forehead…and I push it through my skin…into my mind.

Jesus says to me, “Now you have the grace of Jesus in your heart and in your mind.”

Jesus picks up my box with my rock in it. He gets up from the table, he smiles at me and he walks away.

That was the dream. I know it was because, like a good writer, I rolled over to the drawer in the side table, took out my writer’s pen and pad and wrote it all down while I could remember it, or I never would have believed it myself.

In each dream I have had about Jesus, he is a bit different. I’ve seen him with and without specific facial features, strong or gentle, looking just like my favorite portrait of him that hung in my Sunday School room when I was eight or in the stained glass window of my church, or in a children’s book I loved at six years old, or some other way that was meaningful to me at the time. Sometimes he looks more like my Father or my favorite Profs at Seminary. That would make sense in a dream. But in the dream I always know that it is Jesus who is talking to me even if he looks like someone else I admire and respect.

I come to know different answers from Jesus through the Holy Spirit. One day one answer works better than another, and cumulatively the answers work best as a whole. It might have something to do with spiritual maturity. I hope so.