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It is early morning, one sleeper turns to the other, an eye half opened, "Do you know what time it is? We've overslept!" Flying slippers rushing to the kitchen, the exclamation on the end of the sentence is placed by kaleidoscopic confusion at the beginning of the day.

Or imagine a dormitory room: a college coed leaping from bed, a rush to the desk, the alarm clock lifted very closely to her eyes, "Noooo!" she shouts and begins to jump up and down, both feet pounding on the floor. One after another she takes books from the shelves and hurls them across the room. Dorm residents gather in the doorway as the commotion continues until the sea of curious bodies is parted as the girl's roommate rushes to her aid, "Sue, Sue, what are you doing?"

"I can't believe it!
I slept through my final," she exclaims, hoisting her clock over her head as if it has succumbed to a terminal illness. The roommate interrupts, taking the clock, "Your final is tomorrow!" (silence)

"Oh."
Perplexed, Sue climbs calmly back into bed.

Paul says we know what time it is (Romans 13), but sometimes we don't. And he suggests that it is full time now for us to wake from sleep, but sometimes it would be best if we would just keep on dreaming.

How To Remember Your Dreams

We know little about the man who was Jesus' earthly father. But we do know that he was a dreamer. And that he remembered his dreams. It is true, of course, that Joseph found himself in a very ticklish situation. He was betrothed to Mary and before they had come together, she was found to be with child. Joseph, by law, could have exposed Mary to humiliation and retribution, but being a just man, he resolved to divorce her quietly and then he dreamed. In his dream an angel came to him and said, "Joseph, do not fear to take Mary your wife. For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." And when he awoke from sleep he did as the angel of the Lord commanded.

We do not know much about the life of Jesus' earthly father, but we know that he dreamed and he remembered what he dreamed.

In our time some suggest that it is important for us to remember what we dream.
Many argue that individuals who claim that they never dream simply do not remember their dreams. There are even training programs to help us recall what we are dreaming. Dream therapists instruct us to awaken at night long enough to record right away what we have dreamed and write down many of the details, moods, fragments of images and feelings. One therapist published the suggestion that since our REM periods of sleep occur approximately 90 minutes apart, it would be a good idea to set an alarm clock to go off at 4.5, 6, and 7.5 hours after we go to sleep. To which my spouse responded, "You could guarantee capturing details of your dreaming and be sure you always sleep alone!"

Frederick Buechner reminds us that in our dreaming sometimes we catch a glimpse of Truth:

The path of your dream winds now this way, now that -- one scene fades into another, people come and go the way they do in dreams -- and then suddenly, deep out of wherever it is that dreams come from, something rises up that shakes you to your foundations. The mystery of the dream suddenly lifts like fog, and for an instant, it is as if you glimpse a truth truer than any you knew that you knew if only about yourself.1

Joseph dreamed and he remembered what he dreamed. But Joseph is not the only one who dreamed in the birth narrative from Matthew's gospel. There also were those who followed the star. They had dream enough to look deeply into the heavens and to follow what they discovered there. They came from the east and happened upon one named Herod who told them to go and search diligently until they found the child and when they had found him, to send word so that he, too, might come to worship him. But they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod but to return to their country by another way (Matthew 2:12).

It is in Matthew's dream world that the words do not fear and fear come together: words of comfort, calm, and courage; and words of caution and impending calamity. For it is at the hands of Herod the king, who also comes searching for the child, that the innocents are slayed, and we hear the wailing of Oklahoma City transposed into the biblical narrative. For Herod has come to slaughter innocent children in hopes that their elimination will insure the elimination of the One who was born to be King.

And in a dream the angel said to Joseph, "Have no fear," and in a subsequent dream, "Leave town now!
Don't take time to pack your things." So we lead our dreamlike lives, hearing in a dream the words "do not be afraid" and also the warning of impending calamity.

When We Dead Awaken

The playwright of the nineteenth century, Henrik Ibsen, frequently included in his plays characters who in the pursuit of their own goals involuntarily trampled the lives of others. In his last play, titled When We Dead Awaken, the renowned sculptor, professor Rubeck, has returned to his home country, Norway, after years abroad. His fame and success have brought him no happiness. His greatest artistic triumph was a modeled self-portrait titled Remorse for a Ruined Life. He has sacrificed everything for his art -- the love of his youth and his idealism. In the end his art has been betrayed by the relinquishing of these as well. The studio model who posed for him in his youth and with whom he fell in love appears to him in his moment of destiny. She brings to him the truth: "She calls him a 'poet, one who creates his own fictitious world, neglecting his humanity and that of the people who love him.' "2

And it is the apostle Paul who says to us, "You know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:11-12).

Put On The Armor Of Light

So Paul calls us to awaken from our dead lives. To awaken because night is far gone, the day is at hand. To awaken from a world where the voices of warning and of promise are heard with equal attention. He calls us to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

In this season of Advent we are in a time of awakening. We know the Light will come. It is the time of drowsy awareness/semi-consciousness before the dawn, where the shadows consume and envelope but only for a time. Now if we choose, we may rise to the voices of warning and alarm; or we may wait ... to be lifted by the sun -- when I can, I prefer my awakening to come by the sun. The light of dawn gently calling me to life, allowing me to embrace the gift of a new day.

Toward the end of his life, Henrik Ibsen said to a friend: "He who wishes to understand me must know Norway. The magnificent, but severe natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life -- the farms miles apart ... That is why they become introspective and serious, they brood and doubt ... There, the long dark winters come with their thick fogs enveloping the houses -- Oh, how they long for the sun!" 3

This is not a season of alarm, but a season of gradual awakening, of preparing to embrace a new day.

Oh, how we long for the Son!
In this season as we doze and dream, dream and doze, the night is far gone, the day is at hand. In this season all creation yawns and yearns for the coming of the Light.

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1. Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), p. 2.

2. Nytt fra Norge, The Dramatst Henrik Ibsen (Norway: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1995), www.norway.org/ibsen.html.

3. Ibid.