Of Endings and Beginnings

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

And here we are, with one more day (or two, depending on when you read this) to go in ordinary time. On Sunday, Advent begins and we move to the Year A readings, moving from the current Gospel of Luke to the Gospel of Matthew.

It’s a time of endings and beginnings in other aspects of our lives too: we wonder if this will be the last Christmas we have our parents or grandparents. We wonder if we’ll be parents or grandparents or even great-grandparents anew in the coming year. We wonder how that yearend review will go at work, and some of us wonder whether Congress will keep the federal government open in January. Some of our elected officials are worried about their own job status a year out. We wonder if we’ll be thinner/fatter/grayer/more wrinkled/poorer/richer/happier/more depressed/more spiritual/less beset by doubts and anxiety next year at this time.

Today’s lectionary readings come from the Book of Daniel, written some 200 years before Jesus’s birth, and the Gospel of Luke, written more than thirty years after the Resurrection. The readings from Daniel include apocalyptic visions; in Luke, Jesus talks of when his followers will know the Kingdom of God is at hand, and counsels:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

This human focus on the ultimate Ending and final Beginning is as eternal as the Lord himself. But there’s simply no need for us to try to figure it out. God’s got it covered. He always has. As this liturgical year draws to a close, let’s refocus on God and the way He works in our lives now, today, and what we can do to bring His Word to the world.