Beginnings and Endings

Beginnings and endings have been on my mind a great deal as of late:

• Ending a job; beginning a new one
• Ending a semester; beginning a new phase in my seminary education
• The birth and passing of a friend's baby
• The impending birth of my sister's first child; the graduation of my youngest brother from high school
  
• The terminal diagnosis of a family member
• The end of 2007; the beginning of 2008
  

The thing inherent to beginnings and endings is the period of transition. I knew I was changing jobs 3 weeks before it actually took place. I know the academic calendar for nearly the rest of my education; the semesters are not surprises. People are born, people grow up, and people die. The years continue to flow into each other.

But within these predictable situations there is great unpredictability; periods between knowing what is to happen and having it come to fruition -- or to change paths along the way and produce a completely different outcome. And it is this time of transition that makes me too anxious to sleep, to eat, or to feel like I can function normally. I have come to expect great turmoil in transition, and it is a job for me to see the joy in changes.

I cannot escape the dilemma presented here. Paul's famous reminder that faith is being sure of what is hoped for, and convicted of things unseen is quick to pop into my head. If I claim to live by faith, why do these times of transition - of living between what is hoped for and what is to be seen - weigh so heavily?

It occurs to me to read the rest of Hebrews 11 -- the very last verse is Paul's reminder of God's promise to perfect His creation in the great community of Christ's followers. "God has provided something better for us," Paul says, "that apart from us they should not be made perfect" (verse 40). Coming at the end of a story of the great warriors of the faith - of Abraham and Isaac, Moses, Sarah, Noah, the Israelites leaving Egypt, and too many more to name - it is a powerful reminder that even those who live lives consecrated to the Lord cannot themselves obtain the perfection of faith. It is given through a much deeper love and sacrifice than what we will be asked for -- the loving sacrifice of God's own Son. How much Christ agonized in his years of transition - his years of knowing why He had become flesh and what His ultimate choice would be! We can see how heavily this weighed on him in the scriptures -- but He lived love through even the worst of times.

God continually provides a better way for us in the person of his Son come to earth. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," John tells us. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:1, 4). In just over a week our world sets aside a day to celebrate the birth of our Christ; I cannot do it without looking forward a season to the culmination of that life and light for men. It is because of Christ's earthly ending that we can have faith at all. Let this be a lesson to me, even as things move and shake around me: it is through Him that my faith need not be perfect in its own right. He is my author and perfecter.

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O rose of Bethlehem
How lovely, pure, and sweet
Born to glorify the Father
Born to wear the thorns for me