It's been a new beginning for me and the family lately, starting at a new church in a new role just as we start a new liturgical year (and the kids all have birthdays!). It is a time of excitement, of anticipation, of promise.
At this time of year, a time of a new beginning, the church begins by reading a passage from the Bible that looks to what they anticipate will happen at the very end of time. They focus on the ending. It seems as if the plot is somewhat mixed up.
Now normally I'd be pretty disappointed if I started to read a book and right at the start it told me whodunnit, or that there was a happy ending. I would lose any sense of suspense. But there are exceptions...the movie 'Pulp Fiction' where we see one strand of the story begin where another will eventually end, a biography I read last year called 'Stuart, a life told backwards' about a homeless man, an interesting novel I once read called 'The irresistible inheritance of Wilberforce'...sometimes the narrative is enhanced by fast-forwarding to the ending.
It's like this in the church calendar...endings lead to new beginnings so that's why they shift their focus from Christmas (which you may have noticed is just round the corner) to a time of new creation, where there is no pain, violence or suffering.
When we are suffering and wish it would end, or have lost someone or something and wish it hadn't ended, it may helpl to think in terms of endings providing new beginnings. This is not an easy thing to do. Without wanting to deny the reality of our pain, we must all surely hope for a time when it finishes, though. When our situation changes. And all change brings with it the possibility of new beginnings. And new beginnings bring hope.
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