Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by a dream. It was a grand, dazzling dream: a dream about the future, about destiny, and about the end of the world. But he didn't know what it meant. No facile psycho-babble would suffice as explanation, and just to be sure, Nebuchadnezzar required that the interpreter also know the dream without being told it. It was revealed in Daniel's prayer meeting: Christ is the ruler and end of human history. It is God who validates and gives meaning to Nebuchadnezzar's kingship, and is directing it and all human history toward its end, Jesus Christ.
As Chesterton has written, the Christ who came on that first Christmas is the "Everlasting Man" who fulfils all the longings of human culture and history. In him alone is found meaning and destiny for our lives. But this wonderful message needs a messenger. We, like Daniel, find ourselves living in exile, serving a culture that worships foreign gods. Like Daniel, our call is to be in our culture, not removed from it, to learn the language and literature of the "Babylonians," and to become interpreters of our society's dreams. All around us are dreamers searching for meaning. The Christ we proclaim is the one of whom we sing, "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."
