The End and the Beginning

Grace and peace to from the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen

My life is always moving from place to place. Every summer, my family jokes, that the Hrdlicka moving company is in business again. Since I moved out of our Wisconsin home in 2013, I have moved 2-4 times a year. Every summer, I pack up all of my belongings, load them into the family minivan, and move from school to a new summer job to home to school. This often means moving between three states in one summer. This summer, for example, I moved from Chicago, to home in Green Bay, then a vacation in Boundary Waters for a week of canoeing on the border of Minnesota and Canada, then a chaplain internship in Minneapolis, until, finally, back to Chicago and here to Holy Trinity. For those keeping track, that is 2 countries, 3 states, 4 cities, and countless hours in the car. Uff da as we would say in Wisconsin!

This constant moving has been my life for the last 6 years and likely will continue for a few years more as I finish seminary to start an internship and then first call as a pastor.

In all of this moving, it feels like my “hellos” blend into my “goodbyes”. As soon as I feel settled, I’m packing for the next thing. Or, often, I don’t even unpack and live out of suitcases for a while. It feels like the ending of one thing is simultaneously the beginning of another thing.

After I have the van loaded up, I stand in the empty room that was my home for a few months, and I thank that place--a place I will likely never see again--for all it has been to me. I thank it for being my home, for being my safe place for respite, and for being a place of learning and growth. And I also let go of all the ways this place might have been overwhelming and stressful, challenging and hard. I don’t need those things where I am going next. And as I lock the door for the last time with a heart full of gratitude, I get into the van to move on to my next adventure.

That is what this day feels like in our church year. This is the day where we end our year and prepare to start anew with Advent next week. We are standing in the doorway thanking this year for all it has been a while we start to move to the new year.

Our Luke text today, though, feels like an ending. On a hill outside the city, known as the skull, were three crosses heavy laden with three bodies. Three bodies that had already been scarred and harmed by the guards who hung them to die. Jesus hung in the center and was mocked by the guards and the people who had cried “crucify him”. The people were shouting, “he is the king, the messiah so surely he could save himself!” But Jesus knew, as he as been predicting throughout his ministry, this is the end of his life on earth.

The criminals who hung beside him also thought this was the end for them. One chose to join the taunts of the guards around them. But the other spoke up for Jesus. He said Jesus had committed no crime but was receiving the same punishment. But they were condemned justly and were receiving their right punishment. This was their end.

At the feet of Jesus were his disciples who had followed him through his whole ministry. The women who loved him and anointed him and cared for his body. And his mother, Mary.

His mother who loved him most of all. His mother who hoped, like many mothers, that she would die before her son. They all thought this was the end. This is the end of the ministry Jesus had built, the end of their beloved Jesus’ life, the end of life as they knew it.

Those who mocked Jesus, calling him “King of the Jews”, hung a plaque over his head with this title and made him a crown of thorns. There is no way, they thought, that this man with his broken body, could reign. What they could not predict was that this was actually just the beginning of Jesus Christ’s reign.

This, indeed is just the beginning. For if we hold the Bible in our hands, open to Luke chapter 23, we see Luke has one more chapter about the resurrection of Christ. The Bible has 24 books about the continuation of the church. This isn’t the end!

It was not the end for the criminal on the cross. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” he pleads. And Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Today! Today Christ will enter into the kin-dom and today he will be there with Christ. Immediately, a move from the ending to a new beginning of everlasting life with Christ.

And we Easter people know this life is not the end for us as this promise of being with Christ is a promise for us as well. In the very next chapter of Luke is the resurrection of Christ which marks a new beginning, the reign of Christ, a new life in Christ. The very next chapter tells how Jesus moves from the cross, to the grave, to being resurrected and present to his disciples once again, before taking his reign at the right hand of God our creator.

As we continue moving through the books of the New Testament, the bible tells us of our ancestors, our churches who came before us and give us courage to continue the mission of Christ and the church. Courage to continue to move forward.

This is the end, yes, but this is also the beginning!

Today we pause in the doorway of the end and the beginning. Today is the end of our church year. We give thanks for all the things this last year has been for this community, and we prepare to move into the new year as a community.

This whole month of November has been about endings and beginnings. In our texts for the month, we read about eternal life when we celebrated All Saints Day. Together we remembered the saints who died this year, and rejoiced with those who were baptized this year. We read about the judgement and the coming of Christ when Christ returns for the living and the dead. And today, as we read this text--a text often read on Good Friday--we are reminded of Jesus’ movement from death and the grave, to resurrection and his reign at the right hand of God.

This year, you all gave thanks for the service of Vicar Noah, while also preparing for Reed, Sarah, Troy, and myself, four new seminarians to serve Holy Trinity, and you welcomed us with loving and open arms. We give thanks for all the ways this community has supported seminarians, our classmates, at the Lutheran of School of Theology at Chicago, as well as the larger community outside these walls. And today, we prepare to name our intentions for the year to come to continue our support. And, on All Saints Day, we gave thanks for the saints that have passed before us like Joanne, and welcomed all the newly baptized saints like Nicholas.

Life keeps moving on. Life in this church, and life outside this church. Even when we feel like we are at the end and there is nowhere to go, when we feel like we cannot possibly begin again. When we feel like we are so deep in the grief of a loved one’s death, or the end of career, or the end of a relationship, or even in the midst of this climate crisis. We feel like we are at the hopeless end.

Yet, we remember, by the grace of God and in the reign of Christ, life keeps moving on. There are new beginnings. There is life and resurrection in Christ for all people.

So today, as we move to Christ’s table, we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We give thanks as Jesus gave thanks at the end of his life, and eat this meal as food for the journey to the beginning again.

Yes, my dear family in Christ, this is most surely the end and for that we give thanks.

But let us prepare our hearts as we move to the beginning! Alleluia! Amen.