Mark's thoughts: The end of the year?

 

The Church Year and the secular year move to different rhythms.  This difference emphasizes for us the unique importance that Jesus Christ has in defining our entire life.  His life, death, and resurrection orient our life in ways that are completely different from the world. 

 

For the world, the end of the year is December 31.  However, for the Church this is the time of beginning.  After preparing during the season of Advent, on December 25 we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.  We rejoice that God the Father sent his Son into the world as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). December 31 finds the Church in the midst of the season of Christmas as we celebrate the incarnation of our Lord for twelve days.  We celebrate the beginning as the Son of God enters into the world in order to carry out his saving work for us.

 

For the Church, the end of the year is November 24. This is the Last Sunday of the Church Year. The world reaches the end of the year because 365 days have passed.  However, the Church reaches the end of the year because we have spent the year recalling what Jesus Christ has done for us.  During Epiphany we celebrate the ministry of Christ and his miracles, such as turning water into wine (John 2:1-11), by which he revealed his glory.  During Lent we enter into a time of repentance as we prepare to remember the Passion of Our Lord. 

 

Holy Week focuses our attention on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ for us.  Our Lord dies on the cross as he fulfills the words of the prophet Isaiah: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  Christ offers himself “as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) in order to win forgiveness for us.

 

The dead body of Jesus is buried.  But on Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  The angels announced, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:5-6).  Then on many occasions during forty days the believers met the risen Lord in Jerusalem and Galilee (Acts 1:3).  On that fortieth day of the season of Easter we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord.  We rejoice that our Lord has been exalted as he “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:22).

 

Before ascending, our Lord promised the apostles, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  On the fiftieth day after Easter we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost.  The ascended and exalted Lord pours forth the Holy Spirit on the Church (Acts 2:33) to empower her to proclaim the crucified and risen Lord.

 

We arrive at the end of the Church Year because Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has died on the cross for us, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.  His Spirit has called us to faith and given us new life in Holy Baptism. These events define our present, and the ascended Lord gives us hope because his final saving action is yet to come.

 

The preceding time of the Church Year prepares us for the end.  It points us toward the return of Jesus Christ in glory on the Last Day as the culmination of his saving work.  And so on the Last Sunday of the Church Year (and in the Scripture lessons for the Sunday that precedes it), we focus on the return of Jesus Christ.  We are reminded that we are to live in ways that are guided by the hope and expectation of our Lord’s return.  Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:12).

 

We rejoice in the knowledge that our Lord will return and raise the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16), even as he transforms the bodies of those who are still alive (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).  All will appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) as he declares us to be just and innocent – the status that we already have now through faith in Christ (Galatians 2:16).  We will receive vindication before the world for believing in Jesus because every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10).  God will renew his creation to be very good once again (Romans 8:19-23), and we will live with our triune God forever.

 

We do not celebrate the Last Sunday of the Church Year because the calendar has run out of days.  Instead, we celebrate it because we who have received God’ salvation in Christ know that God’s saving work will reach its consummation on the Last Day.  Strengthened and encouraged by this fact, we joyfully exclaim: “Come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).