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On Reading Until the End of a Message

Writer's picture: Rev. Dr. Ben HuelskampRev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp

Happy Monday, friends! If you’re surprised that you’re getting a Monday Moment today, then you too did not read the last paragraph of the message. What did the last paragraph say, you ask? “Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Speaking of hope, I hope you weren’t too upset with my April Fool’s joke. No! Monday Moments aren’t going anywhere! 😉 “See” you next week.”


More than a few folks had to admit that they either stop reading entirely at the prayer or stop reading at the end of the prayer. It’s always important to keep reading until the end. In fact there’s a very common place where people don’t read until the end or don’t understand how the end is really not the end. On what we now call “Good Friday,” the Apostles saw the end of their relatively new faith. They saw their master, their teacher, their messiah murdered on a cross. They didn’t understand yet that what was to come. Neither do we.


For us, we’re born, we live, we die. That much we know because we’ve seen other people do the same thing. We comfort ourselves with visions of heaven and the life we will live beyond this one. Indeed, there is an entire subfield of theology dedicated to the study of death, judgement, and where the soul goes when the body dies. We call this field eschatology. Outside of formal academic eschatology, there are many theories about the so called “end times.” From the popular (infamous) Left Behind series of books and movies to self-styled “prophets” forecasting the date of the rapture or the end-of-the-world, our world has plenty of people who claim they know what will happen “at the end.” But what if the end is just another beginning?


To all the people who thought and continue to think that we are nearing or at the end of the world—among them St. Paul in fact—wouldn’t it be funny if the ultimate end of our souls was to go from one end to another beginning ad infinitum? Many people consider Revelation to be the end of the Bible narrative, but the visions described in that work are just that, visions. They provide vivid images for our consideration, but Revelation, as a book, is a transition point when the God of the book, the God of the Biblical library, hands the story over to us. The narrative of salvation, of God making God’s kin-dom manifest among us, continues on with us.


What do you think happens when we die? How do you think the world will end?


Let us pray: God, help us read until the end of the message. Guide us to read prayers and the paragraphs that come after them. Help us to finish the story and see the story continuing and growing in us. May we hear your story and be storytellers for others. We ask through your grace. Amen.


Blessings on your weeks, my friends. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.


Faithfully,


Ben

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