“And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” (Joel 2:28)
When the story of Easter culminates in the resurrection of Christ, we feel great joy and a sense of relief. Along with Jesus and God the Father, we have experienced, vicariously, a great tribulation and a testing; now everything’s going to be all right. The Kingdom of God seems attainable.
How do we describe our emotional reaction to this resurrection? I think Joel’s old testament description of what happens when God, at some future day, will “pour out his spirit on all flesh” may be a beautiful description of the joy of resurrection. What a sweet promise to the old men (I count myself as one of them) that they shall dream dreams. It’s as though the time to rest has come, it’s almost as though God is resting with me. I experience a great peace as God frees me to dream my dreams. What more could anyone ask?
Himself a maker of dreams and a caster of spells, Shakespeare characterized dreams as transitory and chimerical. Yet his Prospero acknowledges they are strongly rooted in human nature: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, …” (The Tempest, 4.1.146-58)
Prayer: Dear God, please give us our dreams. Amen.
Stanford Evans
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