Psalm 126: 1-6

He didn’t make it up on the spot. It was part of a sermon or a speech—and with Martin Luther King, Jr., there sometimes was not a lot of difference between the two—that he had delivered before and that colleagues had heard. But he was not necessarily planning on using those words that day at the Lincoln Memorial with huge throngs of Civil Rights supporters arrayed before him. But after he had been speaking for a bit, some of King’s colleagues behind him began to say, “Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream.” And that’s when he said it. That is when he began some of the most famous words in the whole history of oratory. “I have a dream” King said. And in the coming minutes as he spooled out what that dream looked like, it somehow felt less like a dream and more like an achievable reality after all. You could see it. You could hear it. You could feel it. And when King capped what is now known the world over as his “I Have a Dream” speech, when he said that the words of the old Negro spiritual would soon come true: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last”—well, just hearing him end the dream like that made everyone who heard him feel a bit more free already. Dreams can do that.

the kind of delirious joy and laughter that Psalm 126 describes reminds me of one of the latter scenes in both the novel and the film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The heroic Hobbits Frodo and Sam have finally accomplished their mission of destroying the evil Ring of Power that once belonged to the wicked and powerful Sauron. But for the last long while before they accomplished this, they were under the impression that their one-time mentor and friend, the wizard Gandalf the Gray, had died before their very eyes in the caverns of Moria and in the clutches of the terrible monster the Balrog. What they did not know was that Gandalf had been resurrected, restored, sent back to Middle Earth as now Gandalf the White, an even more powerful wizard than he had been before. But it is only after Frodo and Sam are rescued from their own peril and brought for a time of healing in the city of Minas Tirith that they encounter Gandalf again, very much alive...

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh and song by Isaac Wardell

The “already, but not yet” dynamic at the heart of this Psalm has many echoes in human history, most notably in times of war. Everyone knows that the decisive invasion of Europe on D-Day in World War II was the great turning point in that conflagration, but it was not yet final victory. Many months of bloody fighting would follow before V-Day. In the Iraq War, President Bush infamously announced that we had won with a “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him. And we are still mired in the Middle East. The final victory of God is completely certain; we just don’t know when it will be. Though many will think it corny and most won’t even remember it, the old Gospel song, “Bringing in the Sheaves,” captures the mood and message of Psalm 126:5, 6...

Presented with the image below, how would you interpret it in light of the subject of dreams and people who dream? Is your interpretation influenced by what you know about God-given dreams? Is this a picture that depicts a God dream like the people mentioned in the psalm? Or is this just a Freudian-influenced painter's world of dreams? You can read one interpretation of the painting via the museum link under the painting, but maybe that's not the best interpretation. What do you understand this painting to mean?...

The Christian writer Philip Yancey has as good a definition of grace as any I've seen. In his book What's So Amazing About Grace, Yancey writes: 'Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less. It means that I, even I who deserve the opposite, am invited to take my place at the table in God's family.'

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