If You Want To Walk On Water You Have To Get Out Of The Boat

And with that he was re-established as King and he made a proclamation recognising YHWH as the one true God.

2.1.4. The Magi

Perhaps the best-known biblical dream appears at the conclusion of the visit by the Wise men (the Magi) to Jesus and his parents:

St Matthew records that "having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road" (Matt. 2:12).

Here Jesus’ life is being threatened by King Herod and so in order to secure a future for the child, the voice of the Holy One intervenes in the night when the royal menace is at rest.

2.1.5. Pentecost in Acts 2

Dreaming dreams has a place in the Christian Church today

On the Day of Pentecost when the power of the Holy Spirit falls on the community, Peter explains what was happening was a fulfilment of a prophecy given 900 years earlier in the book of Joel.

Peter quotes Joel 2:28 which the prophet speaking the voice of God says

“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

People dreaming God-given dreams is in fact a Christian gift that goes hand in hand with prophecy

3. The Crossroads

Today, we live at a crossroads in our society so far as making disciples and being Church is concerned.

With our churches being in lockdown people are despairing of how we continue to make disciples and keep our churches going.

Many Christians in our communities feel they are in a storm that threatens to sink the Church, much like the storm Peter and the disciples experienced on the Sea of Galilee in our Gospel reading

However to deal with these gigantic waves around us we need to look to Jesus as Peter did when he walked on water

A Revolution in preaching the Gospel to our parishes and beyond

For me COVID-19 has thrown up a remarkable new form of fulfilling the Great Commission, making disciples and indeed being Church.

And that is using the Internet.

My sister tells me that the Roman Catholic Church has already enthroned a Bishop, based in the USA whose sole remit is to broadcast and reach those Catholics out there in the world via the Internet.

As I am reminded that John Wesley once said: “The world is my parish.”

Because of the Corona Virus, I believe we may well be on the cusp of a new revolution, in the way THAT we are Church and in the way we preach the Gospel, a revolution not seen since the Reformation.

Why do I think this?

4. The Reformation

The Reformation took off, not because of the doctrines of Luther and Zwingli or because of those of Calvin.

No - the Reformation took off because

i) the Reformers provided translations of the Bible into the contemporary language of the Day and

ii) the Reformers used the latest invention of the day the Printing Press to produce copies of the Bible in the contemporary language of the time:

People like William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale translated the Bible into English and their translations were the forerunner of the Authorised Version of the Bible known colloquially as King James Bible