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Tuesday, June 2, 2020 - Join Pastor John for a Daily Devotional

June 2, 2020 by Rev. John Hartman

“The Impossible Dream”

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a video on YouTube of the TV show, “Britain’s Got Talent.” In this show, two brothers come out on stage and sing beautifully the song, “The Impossible Dream,” -- leaving the audience and judges spellbound. Click on the link https://youtu.be/zTmhDyxBybU

It reminds me of the story of Don Quixote, The Man of La Mancha. It takes place in Seville, Spain in the 16^th century. One day from out of nowhere, two ridiculous looking characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, ride up to a rustic inn dressed in their knightly armor. When they walk into that country inn, Don Quixote lays eyes on a bar-fly, Aldonza, a woman of the streets. Being a man of chivalry, Don Quixote bows and tells her, “You are so very beautiful.” But Aldonza thinks he’s mocking her. Don Quixote persists and tells her he loves her. He says, “Your name is no longer Aldonza. I will give you a new name. Your name is Dulcinea (which in Spanish means “my sweet one”). She scorns him and shuns his affection. Again he says, “I know who you are if only you will listen.” But the guffaws of the customers embarrass her. So the innkeeper throws Don Quixote out into the street.

The final scene takes place many years later. Don Quixote is on his death bed. Suddenly there’s a knock at the door. After all these years, there is Aldonza. The old woman shoves her way past the doctors and throws herself on the floor next to the bed. She pleads to be remembered. “You looked at me. You spoke to me. You called me by another name.” The dying man stirs for the last time and together the knight and the woman sing in a breathless whisper that beautiful song. “To dream the impossible dream. To fight the unbeatable foe. To bear with unbearable sorrow, and to run where the brave dare not go. To right the unrightable wrong, and to love pure and chaste from afar. To try when your arms are too weary. To reach the unreachable star.” Then Don Quixote dies. The old woman rises to her feet. Beautiful and radiant, she says, “My name is Dulcinea.”

Friends, there is the battle taking place in your heart and my heart. There is an Accuser who shames us with cries of Aldonza. But there is one who stands before you, and who calls you by another name. He says, “Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (I Peter 2:10). Through this body of Christ at Chestnut Level, we are linked to Jesus Christ, and through Him to one another, -- and that is no impossible dream! We are the Bride of Christ.