“It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” (Joel 2:28).
I must admit frustration. I often hear that my generation needs to move aside and make way for the millennials. I’m told that I’m a dreamer and the millennials are visionaries. I guess that means I’m tired and sleepy? Certainly not!
The Joel text is often misunderstood. Joel is not suggesting that the older dreamers must give way to the younger visionaries. Joel is using a parallelism, a literary device in which the author constructs words in meter to emphasize the message. Joel’s point is not the distinction between young and old, or visions and dreams; but that the Spirit will be poured out on all mankind – male and female, young and old. Also, that the Spirit inspires theological imagination. Using Joel as his primary text for the Pentecost sermon, Peter declared that the promise of the Spirit is “for you and your children” (Acts 2:39).
The Lukan infancy narratives of John the Baptist and Jesus demonstrate this.
Zacharias and Elizabeth are “advanced in years” and Elizabeth has been barren. However, the Spirit moved and she conceived. Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit; her baby leaped in her womb and was filled with the Spirit. Zacharias was filled with the Spirit and prophesied (Luke 1:5-25; 39-41; 57-80).
The young Virgin Mary was “overshadowed” by the Holy Spirit and conceived the Holy Child Jesus (Luke 1:26-56). After the birth of the child, Jesus was presented in the Temple for dedication. In the Temple, Simeon and Anna, both “advanced in years,” declared prophetically that the child was “A Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 2:32).
The Lukan narratives are the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy – young and old, male and female are being filled with the Spirit.
There are many examples of such dreamers and visionaries in Scripture and history.
Moses was eighty years old when he was called to lead Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land. As Israel wandered the wilderness, Moses depended upon the leadership of the much younger Joshua.
When the young warriors of Israel feared the giants of the hill country of Gilgal, it was the eighty-five year old Caleb who said, “I am still as strong today… for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country… perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out as the Lord has spoken” (Joshua 14:11-12).
In 1776, the Continental Congress looked to the brilliant thirty-three year old Thomas Jefferson to pen the Declaration of Independence. When Jefferson needed counsel he looked to the aged Benjamin Franklin who was thirty-seven years his senior.
The forty-six year old John Kennedy united the world when he declared, “Ich bin ein Berliner” in 1963. The seventy-six year old Ronald Reagan challenge the status quo of the cold war when, against the advice of his staff, he cried out, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” in 1987.
In 1963, the thirty-four year old Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged the world with his dream. In 1994, the seventy-six year old Nelson Mandela led post-apartheid South Africa with his vision of national reconciliation and demonstrated to the world that political revolution does not have to mean vengeance and bloodshed.
The inspired sage wrote, “The glory of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is their gray hair” (Proverbs 20:29). The church needs the vigor of youth and the wisdom of age. The church needs visionaries and dreamers. Most of all, the church needs a renewed outpouring of the Spirit on all mankind – sons and daughters, young and old.
So, I’m not ready to retire. My prayer each day is “God, please give me the Spirit that was in Caleb.” I’m willing to climb the hills and face the giants as long as the Spirit gives me strength and imagination.
