By Brian Yoder Schlabach, news and media manager
This week’s theme: The End of the Beginning
This week’s Scriptures: Acts 10:34-43 | Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 | 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 | John 19 – 20:18
When a chapter in our life comes to an end – a relationship, school, a job – it can be hard to think about what the future holds. This week’s theme, “the end of the beginning,” reminds me of those transition times; the in-between periods spent waiting and wondering about what will come next.
The oft-used phrase “the beginning of the end” puts the emphasis on the “end.” But by changing the perspective to “the end of the beginning,” it opens us up to more possibilities. It invites us to take stock, reflect and re-orient, opening the door for what’s coming next and making room for new things to happen.
Jesus’ death is a major turning point in the Christian story, and this week’s theme draws us toward a new perspective as Easter approaches. We find ourselves at the end of the beginning, where we can’t see the future, but we can take comfort in that hope in the unknown, the light at the end of the tunnel, the what comes next. When we frame it this way, suddenly hope seems within reach.
Along with endings comes hope for a new chapter. When you look into the future, where do you see hope?
Excerpt from “Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot:
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.