Did Jesus Dream?

My brain seems to have its own source of boundless energy. The more I try to coax it into rest, the more I attempt to cease thinking, the more it rebels with the stubborn will that only choice three-year-olds possess. It can be exhausting at times. Regardless, I'm often grateful for the strange thoughts that stealthily weave themselves into my mental meanderings...

See, I'm convinced that my mind and my thoughts are no longer my own.

I know that sounds more than a little strange at first. At second glance, you may even wonder if you should recommend a psychiatrist. I'm not crazy, though... at least, not like that! I merely believe that the Bible truly is God's word, and that God's word is true. If I believe that, then I must believe this:

"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

That's a heavy statement, and yet it's gloriously beautiful. I have the mind of Christ? I certainly don't understand that. I do believe it, though, and I'm convinced that this "mind of Christ," given by the Spirit (see the rest of I Cor. 2), works in and through me on a daily basis, even when I'm unaware of it.

At work tonight, I was doing menial tasks in the kitchen when one particular phrase in a radio song jumped out at me: "...Even heroes deserve to dream." I don't know why I heard that sentence; I hadn't even been listening to the music. I did hear it, though, and a question immediately surfaced in my mind: did Jesus dream?

I've been pondering that question ever since that moment, but it has, like so many of my thoughts, metamorphosed into many ideas. I have far more questions now than I did earlier, and thus far fewer answers... I do have imaginations and wonderings and awe, though.

That one question, "Did Jesus dream," has brought me (so far, anyhow) to this realization: I don't give Jesus nearly enough credit for having been human. I believe that he was. In fact, I believe that he was simultaneously fully God and fully man. I have learned about various doctrines and beliefs of the incarnation since I was a child; I have known of Christ's humanity. I have never comphrehended it.

I still don't comprehend it. How can I when, as of yet, all the mental images I have of Jesus are of him sitting in grassy meadows or on calm, glassy seas wearing his spotless white robe and blue sash? It's a ridiculous portrait, really. He was a carpenter's son. Carpenter's sons simply don't have spotless clothes (have your ever met a carpenter?), and I'm quite sure they didn't accessorize with nicely color-complementing accessories.

Jesus was an infant once. He was born in the same way that all human children are born: he inflicted severe pain on his mother, and he probably had the same red-wrinkled face and helpless wail that all newborns do. He was raised as every child is; he had to learn as every child does (yet, somehow, without sin...).

It is this boy-Jesus that so intrigues me. When he was very young (say, five years old, or even eight or nine), did he comprehend that he was the son of the one true God? Did he fully comprehend his nature, his power, his utter being? Did he first and always dream of reuniting the world with himself, his Father, and the Spirit, or did he dream of growing up to become a carpenter, like his father Joseph? From the first real insight we're given into his boyhood (when he's left at the temple in Jerusalem for three days), it seems that his focus was merely to be with his Father -- in the place where his Father resided. The closest he could then get to heaven on this earth, I suppose, was the temple. Even with that ultimate desire, though, did he understand and desire to fulfill his "mission," or did God allow his life dreams to change throughout the course of his life?

And what of those other sorts of dreams? When Jesus laid his head down at night, did he dream of daily, mundane interactions, or was his head filled with images of the other-worldly, the ethereal (that is, the truly real), the beautiful? Did he see the Father and Spirit in his dreams, spending hours of blissful community with them, or did he longingly dream of returning to them? Did he dream of the kingdom as it was created to be, as it will be in the quickly coming future?

Did he dream of us?

I don't know, of course. I don't think that these questions meant to be answered. All I know is that they've set me thinking:

Who is this Jesus that I love, worship, and follow? I know much about him, but I am constantly reminded that I know him very little. I do have insight into his mind, though -- I am claimed by him, and his Spirit lives in me. I can only hope and pray that the more I grow to know him through this and through his word, the more I will know what it is to have the mind of Christ...

And maybe I'll learn to dream the way He did.