The End?

“But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

John 21:25

Thus ends the Gospel According to St. John. Luke’s Gospel ends with the Ascension, where Jesus slips through the clouds to return to the Father; Matthew closes his Gospel with Jesus’ Great Commission and a promise of unending presence. The original ending of Mark’s Gospel is abrupt, disjointed, perhaps so that we, like the disciples, may confront our own lack of understanding about what it means to carry our cross and follow Jesus, as His disciples, in our own place and time.

But John’s ending has never left me satisfied, I don’t know about you. It hooks me in, tantalizes me, making me hunger for more. I want more stories about Jesus, more miracles performed, more parables told and more disciples called. But it is a far better ending than merely “The End,” for there is no end to this story, is there?

In Karoline Lewis’ commentary on this Gospel, she concludes, “[A]bundant grace cannot be drawn to a close or wrapped up in a tidy, literary, narrative conclusion. God’s grace extends beyond the confines of this story and even beyond the limitations of the Word made flesh. If God can become human, then there are really no restraints or restrictions, no boundaries or borders that can in any way curb or control the extent of God’s love … for God so loved the world.”^[1]

As we move into the final half of the Easter season, how do we get Easter “into our bones?” How can we live in such a way that our lives are testimony to the risen Christ? How can we be “the light of the world” that Jesus claims we already are?

It is only in and through this boundaryless and borderless God, who knows no limitations and pours out “abundant grace” time and again in our lives, that we can hope to live into the task which has been handed onto us. This requires, time and again, that we remove those limitations and boundaries that we construct about who God is and who God isn’t, who God loves and who God doesn’t love … for God so loved the world.

In John’s Gospel, the last words attributed to Jesus are “Follow me.” (21:22) That is how we live an Easter life, by following the way of Jesus … emptying ourselves of our own ego needs, serving those who God puts in our lives every day, carrying our cross, dying to self daily and rising to new life in Christ our Lord.

When we do this, we engage in Christ’s never-ending story.

[1] Karoline, M. Lewis, "John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries" (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 260.