March 23, 2008 | 6:30 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service

Ending for the Sake of Beginning

Joyce Shin
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

John 20:1–18

It has been a few years since I witnessed the sun rise over this horizon. Though it happens every day, I witness it so seldom. By missing it, I am missing a remarkable gift that God has given us: in the rising and setting of the sun, God gives us a daily reminder to mark beginnings and endings.

The author of Ecclesiastes writes about time. He writes from the perspective of one who is resigned to the fact that time, no matter what, marches on. “The sun rises and the sun goes down,” he writes. Each day this happens, and it will happen again. He goes on to say, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” From this point of view, time is simply the monotony of repetition.

Is there really nothing new under the sun? I remember struggling with this sentiment when I last witnessed the sun rising over this lake. I was awake early because I couldn’t sleep well. At a friend’s home in one of these tall buildings, I looked out the windowed wall and saw the sun rise. When I looked down to street level, I saw signs that the day was getting underway. For me that day would consist of a memorial service for my closest friend who lost a battle with cancer. And I remember thinking at that moment how cruel it was that time marches on, whether or not the friend I loved was alive or dead.

What I was in need of was closure. I needed the end of my friend’s life to be marked before I could appreciate the dawn of a new day.

I imagine that this is what the disciples must have needed when Jesus was no longer with them. They needed to get their minds around the fact that Jesus was gone, dead. Moreover, they needed to know that as time marched on, Jesus’ life and death would not amount to nothing.

The Gospel of John is my favorite Gospel account of Jesus’ passion, crucifixion, and death. Unlike the other Gospels, John’s Gospel, I think, creates an opportunity for closure. Whenever I read from chapter 14 until the end, I sense the author’s care for what Jesus’ followers are going through. Unlike the other Gospel accounts, in John, Jesus gives a farewell speech to his disciples. He takes the opportunity to instruct them for the time when he will no longer be with them. He gives them a commandment, words to live by after his death. He instructs them to love one another as he has loved them; to lay down their lives for one another; to relate to each other, not as master and slave, but as friends.

What would you want most for the people you love, if you could no longer be with them? Like Jesus, wouldn’t you want them to be loved by someone and to have someone to love? Wouldn’t this be your greatest comfort? John tells us that when Jesus saw his mother near the cross and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son.” And to the disciple, he said, “Here is your mother.” And the author of John tells us that “from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.”

About thirteen years ago I spent a summer as a pastoral intern at a retirement community down in Hyde Park. During a weekly meeting with my pastoral supervisor, Father Bob Petite, I expressed both my surprise and delight at how receptive many of the residents had been of me. Even though so many of them had undergone the loss of spouses and close friends and even though they knew I would be there only for the duration of the summer, they still bothered to get to know me. Father Petite took in what I said and he turned it into a learning experience. He explained to me what he had found to be true over many years of ministering to elderly people: that people who are most open to new relationships are the people who have had good closure in past relationships. How a relationship ends matters, he told me. The end matters not just for that relationship. It matters also for the next relationship that the person will have. Having good closure in the past, he was convinced, empowers people to be open to new relationships in the future.

During Holy Week and Easter each year, we retell the story of Jesus’ journey toward the cross, his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Like all stories, the Gospels have a beginning and an end. During Holy Week and Easter we concentrate on the end. My father, lover and student of good stories, once told me that endings are more important than beginnings. We all know how powerful an ending can be. How a story ends can lead us to think differently about everything that preceded the ending; it can color the entire narrative in a new hue. What could be a more powerful ending than Jesus’ resurrection?

To his followers it meant that Jesus did not live and die for nothing. In light of his resurrection, Jesus’ followers would begin to rethink his entire life, from beginning to end, and they would write the Gospels. Moreover, in light of his resurrection, Jesus’ followers would carry on; they would love one another, lay down their lives for one another, and befriend one another. In the power of his resurrection, the church was born. Today we celebrate an ending that is also a beginning. Jesus died and rose again for our sake: by not allowing us to hold onto him, Jesus frees us to hold onto each other.