It was a vision, a grace driven design for his life. Joseph, the son of Jacob’s old age, reveled in it. In fact, seventeen-year-old Joseph had had two dreams about his family. In the first dream, his brothers and he were harvesting wheat, bundling the stalks into sheaves when Joseph saw his sheave stand up and his brother’s sheaves bow down to it. The second dream was even more striking: “…I had another dream and this time the sun, moon and eleven stars were bending down to me.”
A vision is a dream that issues a purpose, or a plan for the dreamer. A holy vision is a spark of divinity, which for the dreamer is a revelation unlike any other dream. I think an essential feature of a vision is that it is received like a bolt of lightning or a gift with destiny and urgency built into it. It drives the dreamer and is compelling. It becomes fleshed out in the striving. Visionaries see beyond the now to a new way of doing things, or a new destiny.
The founder of the Congregation of the Resurrection, Brother Theodore, had a vision of the kingdom of God like the Christian community of Acts 2. He saw a church driven by the power of the Holy Spirit where young men see visions and old men dream dreams (Acts 2:17 quoting Joel 2:28). Where all resources were in common, where all prayed together and shared the common life (Acts 2:42).
We need to recover that vision because our mission depends upon it. Our mission is the way we discern how to fulfill that vision. A people without a vision die. They just become slower in responding to their mission and finally sit at rest because they have lost the vision. They are dying.
Hope, though, is the essence of the life that Jesus holds out to us. The magi had a vision and then near Jerusalem lost sight of the star. When they stopped at Herod’s palace to seek direction for their journey, the star reappeared to guide them. They were overjoyed to see the star. We should look up for our star.