“Endings and Beginnings” (Full Service)
Sermon begins at 35:09
“Endings and Beginnings”
Scripture: Luke 24:44-53
Stories have endings. It’s one of the inevitabilities, whether you’re writing a book, or watching a movie, or just sharing something about your day. Inevitably the story comes to an end.
And that’s not a bad thing. As a friend of mine once put it, it’s the end to the story that gives meaning to what comes before.
If you really want to understand the importance of endings, take a moment to think about your favourite movie. Now think about what it would be like if they had cut the last ten or fifteen minutes. As an example, imagine “Saving Private Ryan” without that final scene that takes place years later in the cemetery, with Ryan, now a senior, surrounded by his family – the family that never would have been if Tom Hanks’ character had failed in his mission.
Or think about your favourite novel without its final chapter. The genre doesn’t matter. Imagine a mystery where the villain is never identified, a romance where the barriers to relationship are never overcome, an adventure in which the treasure is never found. It’s the ending – the resolution – that gives meaning and purpose to everything that comes before.
And the same thing is true of the gospels. It’s the ending of the story that gives meaning to the rest. Now, when it comes to the gospels, I actually would have hesitated to use the word “story” if “story” wasn’t also the root of the word “history”, because in the gospels we’re not talking about the product of someone’s imagination. We’re talking about events that happened in the dust of places you can still stand in today, during days that are dateable by the lives of those, like Caesar Augustus and Herod the Great, who ruled over a world into which the power of God so humbly stepped…
But without the ending, what would the gospels be? A country rabbi dead before his time. A remarkable teacher whose words were simply too challenging for a world determined to go its own way. And it begs the question: Without the ending would that story even be remembered today? No. Without the ending – without the resurrection -- Jesus would have faded into oblivion, a false Messiah, an empty hope. It’s only the ending that changes that.
And it’s actually the ending that explains what the rest of the story is all about. It’s about Jesus as the one who had been promised for centuries. It’s about Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life. It’s about Jesus, dying and rising – because both were needed -- and both were at the very heart of God’s plan…
And that’s demonstrated, not just by how much of the gospels are devoted to that final week in Jerusalem, but by the final chapter. That it’s all about Jesus is demonstrated by the ending. In fact, the gospel of John ends with the author actually telling us the purpose of his book: “these [things] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Again, it’s the ending that gives the rest of the story its meaning.
Now Luke’s gospel, the one we read from this morning, ends with one final appearance by Jesus. In that last opportunity to be together, Jesus opens the minds of his disciples so that they can understand. He opens their minds so that they’re able to read the scriptures, and see him there. See that he is the one who was promised. See that what has already happened to him is written there as well. His suffering is there. His sacrifice is there. His death is there. But so is his resurrection…
But Jesus not only shows them the meaning of what has happened. He also shows them what still has to happen. What has his ministry been about? Where has it all been leading? It actually leads to the mission of the Church, which, here, Jesus summarizes for them. The mission of the Church is about calling people to repentance. It’s about inviting people to experience forgiveness. It’s about proclaiming those things to all nations. It’s about doing so in Jesus’ name... And, Jesus says, as you do that, you won’t be alone. He promises them the Holy Spirit, as we heard about last week. And then he’s gone…
In Luke, it’s that scene, that final instalment, that actually gives meaning – and power – to everything that’s come before…
And it’s that scene that not only gives meaning to the gospel story. It’s that scene that gives meaning to our stories as well. And it does so in several ways.
For instance, we’re here today to remember and give thanks for people who not only meant a great deal to some of you, but who meant a great deal to this congregation. At the time of their deaths, we gathered to tell their stories. But, as we also acknowledged with each of them, what gave meaning to those stories was their relationship with Jesus…
It’s easy, even tempting at times, to think that what made their stories meaningful was the relationships they had with us, as husbands or wives, mothers or fathers, brothers, sisters, and grandparents too. Certainly, that’s the thing that’s often mattered most to us about them -- and it’s the loss of that, as part of our daily lives, that we all feel most keenly.
But the reality is that our lives simply can’t give lasting meaning to their lives, because eventually we’ll be gone as well. Yes, we can strive to keep their memory alive as we keep adding links to the family chain, but eventually, inevitably, the earliest of those links fade into oblivion. On my dad’s side, for instance, I remember my grandfather. He was alive for the first twenty or so years of my life. And I have pictures of my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather – but for me those two men are really nothing more than names and faces. I never met them. I never knew them. And all the generations before that have simply been forgotten…
And so, without Jesus, all of those lives are like a movie without the last ten minutes. A novel that’s missing the final chapter. They become stories that end without resolution. They share the finality of the cross, but not the startling promise of the empty tomb.
No, what gave – and what continues to give -- meaning to the stories of those we’re here to give thanks for this morning is that they lived for Jesus, that they shared the hope of Jesus, and that now they’ve experienced the welcome of Jesus himself. Take him away and you take away their ending. Take him away and you take away their meaning. Search the internet and you’ll find dozens of links suggesting that true love stories never have endings. But the only thing that can make that true is the love of Jesus Christ. It’s only in him that love never ends.
But it’s not just the stories of those we’ve loved that derive their meaning from the ending of the gospel. It’s our stories as well. It’s the story of St. Andrew’s. It’s the story of the Church as a whole. The end of the gospel gives meaning to the story that we’re a part of – the story that continues to unfold.
And that’s something that’s especially true of Luke’s gospel, because for Luke we also have the sequel in the Book of Acts. In Luke and Acts, we have two books that were written by the same author, and composed for the same person. In other words, they’re meant to be read together. And what connects those two books – those two stories -- is actually this scene of farewell – a goodbye in which Jesus also gives them his final instructions before he leaves. Here, at the ending, is Luke’s summary of what Jesus’ mission has been all about. And here, at the ending, Jesus provides the plot for the story that’s yet to be written: “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”
In the final scene of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, a scene we’ll be watching together in just a few minutes, Frodo hands to his good friend Sam the whole record of their adventures, together with the words “The last pages are for you.” In this final scene from the gospel of Luke, Jesus essentially does the same thing with his friends and with us. He suggests that there are pages yet to be written. That the story of what God is doing does not end with his departure. That in the ending of what we know as the gospel is the beginning of what’s meant to happen in Acts and beyond.
There are always new chapters to be written. No ending is final until that one when Jesus returns and ushers in the happily-ever-after he has prepared for his own.
But there are times when the Church loses sight of the great story it’s a part of. Someone once called the Church “Cinderella with amnesia”. And that’s because there are times when we become muddled about the instructions we’ve been given, and about the plot line we’re to follow. Times when we lose sight of the big ending – and, in doing so, lose sight of the meaning of the story altogether. And that’s what makes Jesus’ parting words so important. In the ending of that part of the story is the storyline of the next...
So here is our mission: to call the world – and ourselves -- to repentance, and to proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name. To recognize that you and I live in a world that is alienated from God. We don’t just live in a world that has lost its way, but in a world that has rejected the way, and substituted its own. That’s where the story begins…
And yet this is also a world that is being offered a way back – the way that is Jesus himself. A way that’s made possible, not just by listening to his teaching, or by enacting his program… But because he suffered… And because he rose. That’s the crucial part. By his resurrection, Jesus built a bridge where before there was only a dead end. He wrote for us the first lines of a new chapter when you and I had simply run out of ink. He took our end and turned it into a beginning. And, again, it’s that ending that gives meaning to everything that comes before…
And, quite honestly, that’s the only plot that will mean anything at all when the end to earth’s story comes along. And that’s the only plot that will mean anything at all when our own story comes to a close as well. And, perhaps most significantly for us this morning, it’s the only plot that can truly transform the nature of our goodbyes – because it’s the only plot that can turn the ultimate ending – the reality of death -- into a beginning all its own.
This scene we’re going to watch from “The Lord of the Rings” is one I’ve shown before. And it holds so many parallels to what Luke has shared with us today. It involves a goodbye. It is both an ending and a beginning.
It involves Gandalf, dressed in white. If you know the story, it’s hard not to see in Gandalf something of Jesus. And, like the Lord Jesus, Gandalf’s now finished what he’s come to do…
The scene also involves Frodo, who’s shared the last part of Gandalf’s work. Think of Frodo as one of those we’ve come to give thanks for this morning – one of those who’s fought the fight, run the race, kept the faith.
And notice that, though there’s grief in the parting, Frodo’s grief is different from that of his friends. Because he knows where he’s going. And he knows who he’s going with. And he’s content – content to leave the last pages for someone else… Just as those we’ve loved, and who’ve loved Jesus themselves, are content to leave the next pages for us… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTstBMkeAH8