ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

We are fast approaching what is the climax of each church year—the celebration of Easter.  The span of weeks that is the church year from Advent to Easter is intended to tell a continuous story.  That story of the redemptive life of Jesus and how it changes life for us is what we are here to remember and cherish and wrestle with the meaning of.  Easter is the most important part of that drama.  We start with the anticipation of Jesus’ birth in Advent and wind our way through the ups and downs of his life until his death, but the story must continue until the resurrection.  It is that coda to his story which gives shape and meaning to the life of our little church community.

Sometimes it is hard to get a grip on the meaning of our own personal stories.  In the “Sound of Music,” Maria sings a famous song with the words, “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.”  And that’s how most of us understand our lives; we start at the beginning.  We think of our biographies in chronological order, but that not how we find the real meanings.  The trouble is, the beginning is a very hard place to start.  None of us were really there at the beginnings of our lives.  If we are lucky, our parents told us a few stories about how cute we were or what infuriating things we did, but few of us have any memories of consequence before the age of three or four.  Even after that the memories are pretty sketchy for a while.  And what about before we were born?  Did our spirits and souls just pop into that womb out of thin air?  Where we came from and how we developed our personalities is really quite a mystery.

Likewise, we have no idea of how our stories will end.  Where we will die and when and how and what will happen between now and then is still a big blank.  And what of the “afterlife,” if there is such a thing?  Our end is as much a mystery as our beginning.  Where we came from and where we will go is not for us to know right now.  We are all just here in the middle of the tale.  We are middle people.

Of course, while he was alive, so was Jesus.  So were all of his disciples.  They too were middle people.  They too had trouble figuring out what their stories really meant.  Only after all of it was over, did the meaning become clear.  So the story of Jesus’ life did not start at the beginning at all.  It is a story that really unfolds backward.  He only began to understand his life on the road to Calvary.  And for us, understanding his life begins with this resurrection event.  Every other part of the story is seen from that point of view.  Without the resurrection, it probably wouldn’t have been long remembered at all.

The power of the resurrection experience enabled the disciples to really discover the meaning of Jesus’ life.  Only from the perspective of resurrection did they begin to reclaim and understand the days of his preaching and teaching and ministry.  Things that might have seemed unimportant at the time were suddenly at the heart of the story.  And some of the moment that seemed so big turned out to not matter so much at all.  The meaning of everything didn’t emerge until they had glimpsed the mystery toward which it all pointed.  And that mystery was, of course, the redeeming power of eternity and the transforming power of God’s love.  The real meaning was defined by what came before the beginning and what came after the end. 

And so here we are, right in the middle of our stories.  We are each somewhere in the midst of that transit that we all make from the mystery of our beginnings to the mystery of our ends.  The reason why our faith matters is that the meaning that we find in our days here in the middle, hinges on what we believe about the reality of before the beginning and after the end.  Yes, the meaning of it all; the meaning of the everyday moments as well as the big turning points, is ultimately beyond our understanding.  But we stake our lives on the connection that we discover between our life here in the middle and the mystery from which we come and to which we will eventually return.  That’s what defines the whole thing.  That connection is what the whole long journey is about.  That connection should be at the very heart of our days.  And so faith.

At Easter, it’s hard to be anything but awed by the power and the mystery that is at the heart of each of our individual lives.  May we each be moved to think on the big purposes and deeper meanings of who we are during this holy season.  May you find God’s awe inspiring grace working in your life.  May your spirits and souls be touched by the power of new life.