THE END OF THE BEGINNING

The end is not always the end. Sometimes we come to what we presumed to be the "end" of a journey only to find so much more lies yet ahead. It‘s like climbing to the top of a mountain, thinking of the peak as your destination. Then, when you get there you can see spreading before you an inviting panorama of ridge after ridge of that breath-taking mountain range. What you thought of as the "end" of your upward hike was, in fact, only "the end of the beginning."

Coming to the end of our journey in Luke‘s Gospel is like that. It‘s not really "the end," but more like "the end of the beginning." As we saw Sunday, October 4th at Christ's Covenant Church, Luke closes his Gospel with the physically resurrected Lord Jesus Christ making a pronouncement like this: "Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his [Jesus’] name to all nations beginning in Jerusalem" (24:47). What was that? What did He say? Something about forgiveness of sins being preached to the whole world? Why, that endeavor would be worth a whole another book!

Exactly. That‘s why the Holy Spirit had Luke write "The Acts of the Apostles," too. The book of Acts is "Volume 2." The Gospel of Luke is "Volume 1." So, when we come to the end of our journey, it‘s not really the end. It‘s more like "the end of the beginning." How the resurrected Lord Jesus continued His ministry through His followers by the power of the Holy Spirit is a story that fills the book of Acts and even continues to this day. Encouraging, isn‘t it?