“A Pilgrim’s Progress - 2008”

  by John Bunyan 1678

updated and revised by Rev. Dr. Carol  L. Kerr  

3 February 2008

 Scripture Reading:  Revelations 21

  Blue Point Congregational Church

Once I had an amazing dream of a dangerous journey to a city on top of a mountain.  The sun shines day and night on this city.  It is built of pearls and diamonds and rubies, and saffires.   The streets were paved with gold, the sidewalks were made of silver bricks.  People sang all day in the city.  Voices and tunes lifted in the air always different yet, at the same time in harmony with one another.  As the people sang their faces shone  not because they reflected the sun, but they  gently glowed from within.     The journey to the city on top of the mountain was a dangerous one, full of traps and monsters, wrong turns and dead ends.  But, there were also kind and wise people who had made the journey themselves who provided places to stay and rest.  Certainly it was just a dream.   Some people don’t bother with dreams.  After all dreams aren’t real.  But, this dream although, not real, pointed me to a truth greater than any other I have known.  It revealed an exciting life that could be lived to the full and in the end find joy that lasts.  The dream was about a man named Christian.  

The dream started with Christian in ripped blue jeans and a old t-shirt.  He was carrying a back pack so heavy that he had to lean forward over his dirty white sneakers as he walked along.  In his hand he carried the Bible.  It was a thick book with gold on the edge of each page and a binding of solid gold, so it flashed as the sunlight struck it.  Christian had started reading the Bible because he was a fearful man.  There is the nuclear bomb for which insane tyrants plot.  There are individual terrorists who believe it is noble to commit suicide and kill as many innocent people as you can along with you.  Then there was the “inconvenient truth” of global warming.  Then there was his doctor who said, “There’s a problem.  We need to take some tests.  I am concerned about something we saw on your x-ray.”  Could be nothing, could be everything.  Christian was a fearful man.

As Christian struggled to walk under the weight of his pack he cried out, “What can I do?  Where can I go?”  At which point a preacher walked up beside him.  You know how dreams are, people appear suddenly who you never really met, but they act like they know you.  That is what happened here.  In reality the preacher was a televangelist from television.  Christian sometimes watched him on TV as he  preached to an auditorium full of people taking notes.   The evangelist called him by name and said, “Christian, look up.  look far ahead see the gate to the straight and narrow path?”  Christian couldn’t see it.  So he said, “If you can’t see the gate, then do you see the light shining way up on the top of the mountain.”  Christian had to stand up straighter to see the light.  His pack shifted and made him loose his balance.  But, when he regained it and looked he did see the light.  Why had he never noticed it before?  It was brilliant and  flashed regularly as if calling in ships from sea.     “Now I see it!” said Christian.    “That light comes from an amazing city that is on top of the mountain.  That is where you want to go.  That is where you will find all the answers.  To get there you must follow that light and it will take you to the gate.” 

On his way another character suddenly appeared in the dream.  This time it was  Mr. Black, Christian’s boss  from his first job when he got out of college.  He was the managing director of a branch of the First Bank of America , the bank always wanted to run in the black.  He was angry at Christian because he was missing work.  Christian insisted that he didn’t work there anymore and he had quit years ago.  This made Mr. Black even more angry.  He asked Christian how much the bible cost with the gold edges.  Christian said, it cost $100,000 dollars.  Even in the dream everyone knew that it was absurd to pay so much money for a book.  Christian felt ashamed in front of Mr. Black.

  Then on the other side, a friend from his home town High School waved to him.  It was Freaky Frank.  He told Mr. Black to go away and offered to carry the Bible to help with his load.  He also started smoking pot as they walked along.  He asked if he wanted a few hits?  Then he showed him a fist full of pills, and threw them in his mouth like Tic Tacs.

 He asked Christian where he was going, and Christian pointed to the gate of the straight and narrow path.  Freaky Frank wondered who would want to go there?    He said he liked to go to wide and crooked places himself.  He said he felt free in wide and crooked places.  But, Christian said the problem was that only the straight and narrow road took you to the city on top of the mountain.    Because they were talking  and  weren’t watching their step, they both tripped and fell into a swamp.  They struggled to get out of it.  Freak Frank said, “Forget it, I’m not going with you, I’ve got to meet with my dealer.   And, man, he is a lot easier to get to than that gate.”  Freaky Frank left Christian in the swamp.  The heavy back pack was pulling him under.  He was beginning to panic, when a girl on a bicycle came up to him.  She smiled, stretched out her hand, and said, “Hi, my name is Hope, I have come to rescue you today.  How are you doing?”  She pulled him out.  Hopped on her bike and waved goodbye.  Christian shouted after her, “How can I thank you?”  She said, “Remember my name, Hope, and look me up sometime.”  She sped away.

When Christian arrived at the gate to the straight and narrow road, there was a toll booth.  It had a sign that read “Main Turnpike Authority.”  “Main” not the state of Maine with an “e”, but “Main” as in primary, most important, and the main thing.    A man with a kind face was waiting in the toll booth and said, “I thought you would never get here!  First customer I have had all day.”  Christian asked how much was the toll.  He said, “I want everything that is in your back pack.”  Christian protested.  “I can’t give you my backpack.  I need it.  I have been putting things in it all my life.  Lot’s and lots of things.  Heavy things.” 

  The man said he wanted to see what was in it.  So Christian took it off.  The man pulled out,  a photo album of an old girlfriend, a broken toy truck  and a yo-yo that his father gave him the Christmas his parents got divorced, a year supply of beer bottles to recycle, old skiis he use to love, the food bowl of his Golden retriever who died two year ago,  and much more.  By the time he had unloaded the back pack there was a pile three times taller than Christian himself.  The man then took threw all his stuff in a pick up truck and said, “You won’t be needing these.”  Then he gave him a small wooden cross on a silver chain.  “That’s all you need.”  So Christian standing straight for the first time in years, put the cross around his neck.  He felt as light as a feather.  He could look to the top of the mountain easily.  He felt he could fly to the top of the mountain.  The man pointed to the straight and narrow path and got in his pick-up truck and drove off to the dump.  As Christian watched him go, he read his bumper sticker which said,  “Your sins are forgiven.”    

So Christian started down the straight and narrow road.  He was bright and cheerful to start with.  He would touch his cross often with his free hand.  He would even run some, just cause it felt so good to be so light.  But, the path just kept going and going.  It started climbing up the mountain.  It was long.  Every time Christian thought he was getting near the top, he would arrive and see that it was only a small crest.  Then it became steep.  He breathed in an out, sweated and wondered if he was in shape enough for the journey.  He thought maybe there was something in his backpack that he could have used.   Maybe  the string from his yo-yo or his dog’s food bowl.  He began to think that the man at the toll booth had been rude taking everything from him.  He wasn’t set free, he was robbed!  Then he saw two men walking down hill.  They said that they had decided to turn back.  They said that the further they went the more dangers they had met. 

Christian thought of going with them.  But, he decided to rest instead.  When he woke up they were long gone.  The two men had told him of a church named “The Church of the Beautiful”  not far ahead which had bread and wine, and great views.    But, to get there you had to pass by two lions.  (Dreams are crazy aren’t they?  I have dreamed of lions in my dreams, some have dreamed of wooly mammoths, other have dreamed of dinosaurs, and bears.)  What did these lions mean?  Why did they wait to eat people up who were trying to get to the Church of the Beautiful?  Christian was afraid.  Maybe carrying the back pack around all his life would have been easier than going on this journey.  It is a scary thing to be transformed.  Is there such a thing as fear of God?  The Bible keeps talking about the fear of God all the time.  Maybe this is what it was talking about.  It is the fear that occurs when we come near to God.  The saints have said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god”  (Heb 10:31)  False gods offer no fear.  But to see that loving and demanding face of the living God is to sense the perilous journey that lies ahead when we follow him.    The lions roared and roared.  But, Christian found that if he looked at the path and did not look left or right, the lions would stop their threats and roll over on their backs.  It was then that he saw chains tied to them all along by the hand of a watchful and skilled animal handler.

Finally, he arrived at the Church of the Beautiful.   Their names were Charity, Faith, and Love.   They gave him a room in their church tower to rest.  It had a wonderful view.  To the west of a land of snow , and to the east was a land of flowers.  Charity said that the one was called Immanuel Land and the other was the country of Life Again.  She pointed out the other place which lay in between the two.  This land was dark and low.  One could see a strange fog moving among its trees, a fog that seem to gather in pools and make a low moaning sound.  That, she said, is the “Valley of the Shadow of Death.” 

Christian said, but it looks like the straight and narrow path leads from this church directly there!  She nodded sadly.  She said all travelers who want to get to the city on the mountain must go through the Valley of the Shadows.  She said there was no other way.

   He wondered how he could make it through.  When Love chimed in and said, we will keep you in our prayers.   Faith said, we will also arm you with a helmet which our friend Hope made and a sword of truth which the men of the church have hammered and sharpened over centuries.   Before he left, he said that he would need food for his journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  They took him into the sanctuary.  Below the stain glass window on a beautiful wooden table in the front of the church they gave him a piece of bread and a small canister of wine.   He thanked them, but said, this will last less than one day.   It will take me many days.  But, they insisted that when he eat and drank it, it would fill again and last for as long as he needed.  They explained that in the past from this same bread only five loaves had fed thousands .     

The next morning Christian left.  He walked into the deep fog of the Valley of the Shadow of death.  More alone than he had ever remembered, a demon named the Destroyer jumped out from behind a tree.  Christian wanted to run.  But, he had no armor on his back, and he thought surely the demon would shoot him in the back with a thousand darts if he did.  So he moved forward.  But the Destroyer blocked his way.  “Where do you think you are going?”  He asked.  “To the city on the mountain.”  said Christian.  The Demon burst out in hideous  laughter.  He then hurled a flaming spear at Christian’s chest.

 So began an intense battle that lasted hours.  Christian gathered wounds in his head, and his hand, and his foot.  He was exhausted.  That was when the Destroyer came in for the kill.  He hit him so hard that the sword of truth flew out of Christians hand.  “I’ve got you now!”  When he was about to crush him to death, Christian rolled over, the helmet of Hope deflected the Destroyer’s blow, and he reached for the sword of truth once again, rolled back just as the Destoyer lunged towards him, and the sword thrust through him that he spread his dragon wings and flew away calling in pain and rage, “I’ll be back one day!”

Then Christian stumbled upon along his way.  Until he found a staff that a shepherd had left along the way.  It helped him as he now limped along.  Then he came to a tree with many different kinds of fruit on it, apples and oranges, bananas, and grapes, pears and peaches – all on one tree.  He lifted the staff and pulled some leaves down to use as gauze for his wounds.   He had read about the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden in his Bible.  Here is was again.  It healed his wounds.   He ate some of its fruit.  He felt good.  Better than he had in years. 

He finally passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and before his eyes he saw a shopping mall called, Vanity Fair.  There were lots of people there.  All were glad to have gotten away from the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  They didn’t even want to think about it anymore.  It had been too scary.    And so most everyone was willing to trade their armor for money and shop for their happiness instead of fighting for it.

 The man at the entrance told Christian that he would give him a low interest credit card with a $20,000 limit which he wouldn’t have to start paying on until three years from then.   That is, if Christian would give him his helmet of hope and sword of truth.    Christian said he would rather keep them.  The man said how silly Christian would look walking around the Mall of Vanity Fair with a helmet and carrying a sword.  “It’s just not the fashion!”  He reminded Christian.  Christian said he didn’t care.  Then the man offered him a $40,000 limit and start paying on it in four years.  Again Christian refused.  Then man shrugged his shoulders and said, “As you wish.”  Christian was allowed in.  People were crowding into the Mall.  They were buying all sorts of things.        The store owners were mad because  Christian was telling other customers that the things they were buying would not bring them any happiness at all.  He said, “It doesn’t get rid of the Valley of the Shadow, it just makes you forget about it for a while.”  He also told them that when they ran out of money, the Valley of the Shadow would still be waiting for them on their return trip.  And all they will have nothing to protect them from the Destroyer because they had sold their hope and their truth to buy their stuff.  The store owners complained to the manager of the Mall whose name tag read  Mr. Reyortsed.

 Mr. Reyortsed ordered  Christian be brought before the Mall court room.  There he was brought up on Mall charges.  He was damaging the trade of the mall.  He was causing commotion with his dangerous opinions.   There was a jury that tried Christian made of men whose names were very strange, Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Liar, and Mr. Hate-light.  Christian was condemned to be thrown into jail for a life time.  Just as he was being taken off to prison, he saw the Mall manager Reyortsed looking in the mirror.  Then he saw the name on his name tag.  In the mirror it was clear that the name “Reyortsed” was the name “Destroyer” spelled backwards.  Christian called out loud what he discovered.  All the people in the Mall stopped.  They remembered the Destroyer from the Valley of the Shadows, that is who they wanted to forget.  That was why they were in the mall, and now they found out that he owned the Mall of Vanity Fair?!

 Before Christian could say more, Reyortsed  realized it was too dangerous to have him around at all, with his sword of truth brandishing about everywhere.  So he had him thrown outside and chased by hungry wolves miles away from the Mall. 

The wolves chased him off the straight and narrow path into a deep forest, where the roots of trees tripped him up and it was so shaded from the sun that it seemed like twilight even though it was no more than 2 in the afternoon.  Completely lost Christian came upon a Castle.  It began to rain and thunder and lightening as he knocked on the castle door.  A giant answered.  He said, “Welcome to the Castle of Doubt.  My name is Giant Despair.  Let me show you your room.”   Christian had no choice but to follow him.   He was led to a dark and stinking dungeon.  He was locked inside, and he heard the footsteps of the Giant disappear.  There was total silence as he waited and waited.  Not knowing where he was.  Not knowing how he was every going to get out of there.  There was something about the gloom of the place that reminded him of how hopelessly stuck he really was in life.  He though of his parents divorce, and their drinking problems.  What could he do about that, he was only a kid?  He thought his financial problems after he quit Mr. Black, and how he was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy at home.  He though about what the doctor saw in his x-ray.   

It was days later that he noticed the lock.  The lock was a combination lock.   But instead of a combination of numbers, there were letters on it.  One had to think of the combination of letters.  He tried many.  First he tried spelling the Giant’s name “Dispair” and the Castles name “Doubting.”  But that wouldn’t unlock anything.  Then he tried the word “Hope” and “Faith” and “Love.”  And although these words made him more cheerful and more wanting to try more and not give up, they did not unlock the lock.  After trying many more words from the Bible such as Charity, Joy, Genesis, Red Sea, Wisdom, none of which worked, he was famished.  He pulled out his bread and his wine, which although he had eaten from it a lot, never seemed to diminished just as the growth committee at the Church of the Beautiful had promised.  He thought the bread and the wine are the only things that are keeping me alive in the castle of Doubt and Despair.  He finally thought about Jesus giving the bread and the wine to his friends at the last supper that he had with them before he was crucified.  The friends of Jesus must have known doubt and despair as much as he did.  It was then that Christian remembered what Jesus had told them, “This is my body broken for you.  And then he said, This is the new covenant sealed in my blood.”    “Covenant” that meant the promise of God.   Jesus said that the bread and the wine were the new promise of God that was given through him.  So Christian went to the lock and spelt the letters “P-R-O-M-I-S-E”  and the lock opened and the door swung open and he was set free. 

After that the dream suddenly set Christian upon the straight and narrow path again where  his friend, Hope appeared on her bicycle.  She is the one who had pulled him out of the swamp with Freaky Fred.  She gave him a lift on her bicycle and the rode together for a long time.  He would periodically suggest she go off the path to places that looked easier, or flatter.  But, she insisted that was not the way.  They could see the top of the mountain all the time now.  It was more beautiful than ever.  There was a sweet smell in the air of warm roses, or orange blossoms.  The smell made your thoughts dance, and gave insight into difficult and sad memories.  It dawned on Christian that all these things had been moving him to this moment and that the difficulties of his life had led him to this joy he was now feeling. 

They came to the edge of the City on the Hill.  But, between them and it there was a river with no bridge.  He couldn’t see how he was going to get across.  Hope told him that the only way across was to swim.  But, she said that he must be careful.  For no matter how wide the river seems when he is in the middle of it he must not lose his faith, or the waves will build up over his head and he will drown.   So, he took everything off that would weigh him down until he was wearing only his the wooden cross on the silver chain that the man from the Main Highway Authority gave him at the toll booth.   He began to swim across.  When he doubted he called to Hope who cheered him on.  Sometime the river seemed enormously wide.  But he persevered and he felt the cross floating on the waves, and he would do likewise.  Finally, he made it.  Hope cheered. 

Now on the river bank on the other side there were two angels shining like the sun who were waiting for him.  They said “We are ministers of God sent here to help those who are going to become new citizens of the City on the hill.”  Christian said,  “I have been to many places, “The Main Authority”, “The Church of the Beautiful”, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,”  “The Mall, Vanity Fair,”  “The Giant Doubts castle of Despair.”  All the time I have followed the light that this city radiates and can be seen from hundreds of miles away.   What is the name of this city?  It is called “The New Jerusalem.  Welcome.  Friend, faithful pilgrim and hopeful traveler, and lover of the light!”

  Christian made it the rest of the way up the hill easily because he had these two angels carrying him by the arms.  When he came to the gate of the city he was given new clothes that were beautiful white robes, and his was given his baptism certificate which he had thought he had lost completely, only now it was framed in diamonds, and the words were written in gold.  A crown was placed on his head with the words, “Royal Priesthood,” engraved on it.  The gate swung open and entered finally the city on the hill, the New Jerusalem.    

In my dream all the bells of the city rang for joy, and everyone sung in symphony of voices, “Enter into the joy of your Lord.”

It was then, and only then, that I awoke, and realized it was a strange and wonderful dream.   And although it was just a dream, like I said at the beginning, it told of a truth and of a journey, that was more real and held more promise than anything I have ever known.  The journey of a man named Christian.  And, even though we have different names our journey is the same as that of Christian, for we all are Christians too.   So, it is a dream about and for each one of us.  Where are you on your journey?

-Just beginning with a heavy backpack?

-Working for Mr. Black?

-In the swamp with Freaky Frank?

-At the tollbooth?

-Climbing?

-Giving up the climb?

-At the “Church of the Beautiful?”

-In the “Valley of the Shadow of Death/”

-At the Mall of Vanity Fair?

-At the Giant of Doubt’s castle, the Castle of Despair?

-Riding a bike with your friend Hope?

-Staying afloat on the river of faith?

-At the city on top of the mountain, the New Jerusalem?