A New Season (Friday Devotional)

 

In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

- Acts 2:17

On Sunday afternoon, my family traded our Easter outfits for baseball jerseys and headed to Arlington to watch the Texas Rangers take on the Chicago Cubs in the third game of the young season. This was a particularly special opening weekend for Rangers fans—last year, after more than 50 years of mostly futility, Texas won its first World Series trophy. So the start of this season was full of signs of the times, from gold-lined jerseys to new murals in the concourse to the giant World Series Champions banner hanging by the scoreboard.

As we walked from the parking lot toward the stadium, I was struck by the different ways my family would be experiencing the game and all its accompanying celebrations. For my dad, who has been a fan since the Washington Senators moved to Arlington when he was 12, this was the culmination of a lifetime of fandom, decades’ worth of exultation and disappointment. He’d been there for Toby Harrah and Bump Wills, for Juan Gonzalez and Pudge Rodriguez, and now for Corey Seager and Adolis García.  He’d endured the same casual small talk with other fans—“what they need is more pitching”—year after year. He’d seen it all.

But for my 4-month-old son Isaac, none of that means a thing. He has literally never lived in a world where the Rangers aren’t champions. The air-conditioned Globe Life Field isn’t “the new ballpark” to him, it’s just “the ballpark.” Nolan Ryan might as well be Babe Ruth to him, because as far as he’s concerned, both are ancient history.

And yet, on Sunday—for the first but not the last time—they both enjoyed an afternoon at the ballpark. One had the context of history, the other saw everything with fresh eyes. One had the wariness of familiarity, the other the unbridled joy of innocence. Their experiences were obviously different, but they both had fun.

On the Day of Pentecost, when God poured out his Holy Spirit upon the church, one thing that was promised was that the empowerment to come wouldn’t be reserved for one age group. Wisdom wasn’t going to be reserved for the old, nor was envisioning the future solely the prerogative of the young. “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams,” promised the prophet Joel.

Different generations have different things to offer, diverse strengths and experiences and outlooks. But everybody—from the smallest child to the most senior adult—has something to offer the kingdom, some way to serve. Nobody is too young or too old to contribute.

If something as ultimately trivial as baseball can be appreciated by all ages, then surely the same can be true for the gospel. So whether this Easter was your first or your 75^th, make this is a season to remember!