Chapter One: The End

The world is going to end in 2014. By the time we’re singing “Auld Lang Syne,” approximately 56 million people will have died. For them, the world will indeed end in 2014. Whether or not the whole world will also reach a conclusion remains to be seen.

Things are coming to an end. Blockbuster is gone. And Shirley Temple. There are even rumors that very soon we will be singing “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight” to J. C. Penny. Plus, the sun is going to burn out. Not for a few million years (so no need to change your plans for the weekend)—but still.

Things are coming to an end. Even as I’m writing this first entry, I am also in the process of putting the final touches on the last issue of The Rocky Mountain Christian—a publication that has been in print for over fifty years. There have been several editors before me, including my father and my uncle. The torch was passed to me and I have the grim privilege of snuffing it out. The various factors leading to this decision were unavoidable, but even so—it’s no fun standing here with a smoking stick. The torch was supposed to continue burning for generations.

So here in as I watch the last few wisps of the RMC drift away, I begin this blog. This blog in a ocean of blogs. In a galaxy of blogs. To date, there are literally millions and millions of blogs.

Plus this one.

And someday, sooner or later, this blog (like The Rocky Mountain Christian) will come to an end. So will the websites and the companies that fund the websites and the banks that hold the funds for the websites and even the people that work in the banks that hold the funds for the websites that Jack built.

You get the idea.

It’s all summed up in a nifty phrase provided by astronomers and physicists. A term used to describe the widespread winding down of the universe: heat death.

  

All the wonders of the whole universe—all the stars, all the constellations, all the eerily gigantic, galactic bedazzlements—are gradually flickering out. The sum total temperature of this existence has a cold front moving in.

We are reminded with every autumn leaf, every worn out pair of shoes, every car that begins to rattle. Did you get the memo? All things come to an end.

But we busy ourselves in a shiny world. We quickly replace the obsolete with the new and improved. Each fresh start create the illusion of durability. And if we move fast enough and keep replacing and upgrading often enough, it is easy to live in the brand of bliss that is only available through ignorance. But the truth is there. Everything that begins contains an ending. 

Maybe this is why God said, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8). Confronted with stark endings tends to remind us that we are surrounded by a universe that is in the process of coming to a conclusion.

I went to a Christian college and every once in a while, there would be a devotional outside on the grass, under the trees. Typically, one of the young men would deliver a brief lesson.

On one particular evening, a young man presented a lesson about endurance or strength or something along those lines. Frankly, I don’t remember his point. In fact, I suspect no one who was there that night remembers this unfortunate young man’s point. The main thing we remember is the tree next to him.

As he was reaching the conclusion of his lesson, the young man pointed to the tree and said something like, “For example, consider this tree.”

This impromptu analogy, was one of the prominent trees on campus. It was practically impossible to get to any class without passing it or at least noticing it. As far as trees go, it was a strong presence, large and familiar.

So anyway, the young man gestured to this tree with a certain amount of fondness. “For example, consider this tree.”

We all considered it.

He smiled. “This tree has been here for many, many years. And I suppose it will be here for many, many years to come.”

We all nodded. We sang some more songs. There was a closing prayer. We called it a night.

The very next day—

In fact, the very next morning—

As we headed to our classes, we heard the sound of a chainsaw roaring across campus, echoing off the buildings. Our suspicions proved to be accurate. The tree of endurance and strength was now the stump of endurance and strength.

It wasn’t the young man’s fault, really. His lesson was still valid. His mistake was choosing something temporary to represent something that endured. When you live in a universe that’s dying, it’s impossible to find anything tangible that can accurately represent endurance.

Aye, there’s the rub. Christians are eternal beings living in a non-eternal world. Our perception fastens itself on an existence beyond our empirical senses.  “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (II Corinthians 4:18). Anything physical ultimately fails pitifully as an analogy for anything eternal.

You know the moment at the assembly where the preacher starts using phrases like “the song we’re about to sing” or “if you have any need” and the congregation starts picking up song books and fidgeting? That’s what this universe is doing. And "as together we stand and sing” is right around the corner.

Of course, it could be a relatively long time before the final ending. You and I might both be fancy font on a headstone by the time Jesus returns. But it could also happen before you finish reading this blog entry. However, there is one fact worth considering here. For every minute that passes by, the odds increase that this will be the last minute passing by.

One more thing. Let’s stand here by this sad stump just a little longer. This analogy of an analogy.

Even as God’s Word shoves us toward the reality of a stark and final finale, it also reveals that souls secure in the salvation of Jesus will find the darkness to be comfortingly brief and death itself to be quite bright. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones” (Psalm 116:15). In the truest sense, for those who belong to God, the end of the matter is better than the beginning.

We walk a ticking world, scheduled for demolition. It will come to an end along with every single endeavor that we seven billion might pursue. But for those of us who belong to God, the end of all matters and even matter itself is a mere distraction. For the final beginning is the first beginning that will have no end.