Genesis 9:8-17
God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
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There’s a quote attributed to poet T.S. Elliot that reads,
“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
When I was younger, I rushed through books. I devoured books as quickly as possible, because as soon as I started a book, I was desperate to know how it ended.
Once I finished, I often would go back and reread the whole book again. The first read-through was always the anxious read, plowing forward to experience the ending. But rereads reads were much more leisurely and comfortable and relaxed, and often more fun, because I no longer had to worry about how things would turn out.
Knowing the end of the story let you face its beginning and middle with a different sense of assurance, and a different sense of hope.
In may ways, our Old Testament and Gospel readings today exemplify the opening quote from T.S. Elliot, “To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
Because the portions of the scripture readings that are appointed for today, whether intentional or not, ask us to think about endings first.
Our reading from Mark today feels a lot like me, rushing through a book to get to the end. In fact, the whole of Mark’s gospel feels that way. He doesn’t bother with descriptions or unnecessary dialogue. Everything happens immediately. Mark wants to get you to the end.
Our reading today jumps right from Jesus’s baptism to the wilderness and back again.
Unlike other gospels where we get a full transcript of Jesus’s scripture throwdown with the devil out there in the wilderness, Mark just breezes through, giving barely three sentences to a forty-day wilderness expedition.
Mark’s in a rush to get us to the conclusion of the episode, where Jesus returns and proclaims, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
The good news is the end of the story. It’s the point of the story. So Mark gets us there as fast as he can.
It’s like Mark is reassuring us that there is good news to be found on the far side of the wilderness, and if we can see that and believe it, then we can face any wilderness experience in our lives with hope. Because we’ve already seen the ending. And it’s a good one.
I mean, Mark really tries hard to set up this idea from the very start. He opens his gospel with the bold statement: [This is] the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Anything else that we encounter in this story we encounter with hope and confidence, because Mark has already assured us that it is all good news. Mark has seen the end, is writing to testify to the works of healing and liberation and restoration that Jesus has accomplished, to testify to resurrection. Mark knows that it’s a good ending, so he starts there.
Which is what’s fun about our Old Testament reading today, too. It’s the end of the story of Noah and the flood. Most of us probably learned this story when we were children. It’s a Bible story that most of us are pretty familiar with. So when we read the ending today, most of us read it, remember the other pieces of the story that came before it.
But imagine, just for a moment, that you are tuning in this morning to worship having never heard the story of Noah. You know nothing about the building of the ark or 40 days and 40 nights, or ravens or doves or olive branches.
Imagine that your first encounter with the story is with today’s passage. You begin with God establishing a covenant with humans and with all living creatures and with the earth itself. You begin with God placing a rainbow in the sky, and talking about how rainbows show up after storm clouds part. You begin with a promise not to destroy the earth.
How would your reading of the story of Noah be different if you started with the ending? How would your reading of the creation story itself be different if you started here with the covenant rainbow?
The Bible is full of ends of stories. And like the end of the flood story, and the end of Jesus’s wilderness temptations, the ends of the stories in the Bible give us good news. Even the crankiest of the prophets find a way to hint at restoration and point to God’s faithfulness. The gospels end with the good news of Jesus’s resurrection, even if the disciples don’t quite understand it yet. The book of Revelation, the end of the Bible, ends with a vision of a new heavens and new earth, and a tree with leaves for the healing of the nations.
All the stories that make up the foundation of our faith are stories that end with good news.
Faith asks us to begin with the endings, and then to reread the beginnings. Faith shows us a vision of good news on the far side of the wilderness, so that we can walk through the wilderness with hope and not with despair. Faith shows us a vision of resurrection, so that we can face mortality with hope for new life rather than fear of death. Faith shows us a vision of healing and mercy, so that we can face the brokenness of this world with hope for restoration rather than callous indifference.
God’s everlasting covenant with Noah is a gift of everlasting hope.
Jesus’s promise of God’s everlasting kingdom is a promise of everlasting hope.
This is where Lent begins, with hope for its ending. Because we already know what is on the far side of this Lenten wilderness: resurrection. The dawning of Easter. The empty tomb. Life beyond death. Joy beyond grief.
I wonder, this Lent, if instead of giving up chocolate or promising to add thirty extra minutes of prayer time into your already over-stuffed day…I wonder if each of us might instead take on the spiritual practice of living each day as people who know the ending, and know that the ending is good news.
I wonder if living more intentionally as people who know the ending might free us up for a little more joy, and might release us from a little bit of fear, and give us a little more courage to speak up for the vulnerable. I wonder if living more intentionally as people who know the ending might help us wriggle free from the grip of things that haunt us from deep in our past, and whether we might be more able to face our future with curiosity and openness and creativity. I wonder if living more intentionally as people who know the ending might help us grieve more honestly and find more gentle beauty in times of weeping, brokenheartedness, or struggle.
“To make an end is to make a beginning,” the quote goes. “The end is where we start from.”
This is your ending: God’s everlasting love for you, and the promise of life beyond life.
This is your everlasting hope.
How, then, will you live out the story of your life that begins anew each day?
May God renew your hope each and every morning, and may you live each day with God’s end as your beginning.
Amen.