Jesus Dream

I stood outside of a high-steepled church sensing my need to go inside. Opening the broad, wooden door I viewed the familiar granite steps that led to the sanctuary. But as I approached them, I saw what looked like blood flowing down the stairs. Slip-sliding as I slowly made my ascension, I was aware of the necessity to make it to the top. My clothes were stained in blood as I crawled to the ominous figure that loomed in front of me. Looking up, it was Jesus, blood-soaked, larger than life, and hanging on a cross. I tried to reach Him but couldn’t quite grasp the foot of the cross as I kept sliding back on the crimson, wet floor. I felt powerless, weak, frustrated, and defeated. I just couldn’t reach Him.

The scene changes and I am in a courtyard seeing the same church in the distance. I’m walking through what looks like a maze of shrubs where I could only see the tops of people’s heads. I find a concrete bench in the center of the courtyard and I sit down. Suddenly the ominous figure on the cross is walking towards me. I see His head above the shrubs as He gets closer and I become afraid. He is still soaked in blood. He comes to the bench and speaks calmly to me saying, “This is the way it has to be.” And He literally lays His body over mine and soothes my fears as I lie there motionless. Then I wake up.

At 3:00 a.m. I was profusely aware that this dream needed to be recorded. So I grabbed a sheet of computer paper and a pencil, headed to my bathroom and wrote it out. The next morning I asked the Lord about it. I was able to receive some clarity that day, but as time has passed He has shown me more…and more.

Being raised in a traditional church setting, not understanding the gospel (you know, the “good news?!) I lived my early years striving for acceptance and love. I was taught that if I did certain rituals and followed the church directives, I might be accepted by God. But even as a little girl, I knew I was doomed to failure because the standards were unreachable. I fell short. So, the Lord showed me that climbing those steps…slipping and striving…reaching out to the unreachable was an exercise in futility. I could never reach the heights of His perfection.

The scene in the courtyard seems to have represented the “inner court”. When Jesus died, the curtain that kept the “holy of holies” separated from the rest of the temple where only the High Priest could enter was torn in two, from top to bottom. JESUS is that High Priest and now we who believe are welcomed into His most holy place. His blood purchased that ticket. But as Believers who might still have some old hard-to-break habits, we sometimes fear the God who loves us unconditionally. When Jesus approached me in my dream, He reminded me that He covers me with His blood. And He did just that! As He laid His body on mine, His healing blood permeated my human skin cleansing all that is vile, sick, and “unclean”. I was able to do exactly nothing. He reminded me in that demonstration of love that fear does not draw me close to Him. Only His initiation of pure love can bring me to a place of trust and intimacy with Him. No human law, tradition, rule or regulation would ever bring me to this freedom and peace.

Reading in Hebrews 9, God helped me understand much of this:

11But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,c so that we may serve the living God! 15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.”

Sort of long, interesting scripture, but packed with TRUTH and helping us to understand the foreshadowing of the Perfect, eternal sacrifice, that is JESUS Himself! There is no need to climb the unattainable stairway to Heaven! “For the life of the creature is in the blood…it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” THAT scripture is in Leviticus…you know, Old Testament? Boring…LAW…bloody? The truth is HIS blood is what gives us life abundant and eternal. Christ’s bloody mess created life and healing in my bloody mess. 

I’ve not dreamt a dream of that magnitude since. And I may never again. But while other dreams quickly fade away, this one will stay in the forefront of my mind forever. 

May His healing blood stay in the forefront of your very life.