When an Ending is a Beginning

By Steve Leininger

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052221.cfm
Acts 28:16-20, 30-31
John 21:20-25

When do you know if you are at the end of a book? The usual answer is you’ve run out of pages. If the book was well written, you have been taken on a journey, shared many adventures with the characters in the book, and probably had several surprises along the way. In most books, there is a sense of closure and all loose ends are accounted for. You “get” the point the author was making.

Motion pictures also tell a story. Some do it well and earn an OSCAR, some become your own personal favorites, and some at least provided a paycheck to that list of people in the credits at the end of the movie.

Some movies hint at a sequel, or that the underlying problem has not been resolved. In the movie “The Blob,” the frozen blob is airlifted to the North Pole after students and firefighters use CO2 fire extinguishers to freeze it solid. The movie ends with “The End” which morphs into a question mark. Will the blob return?

Other movies show the villain, having been killed, opening eyes just before the movie credits. Or just disappearing, hopefully never to be seen again. 

When I first went through today’s readings, the most memorable verses were from the Gospel of John:

It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.  [John 21:24-25]

That sounds like we’ve reached the end of our instruction. No more resources. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. So, I checked —yes indeed, these are the final two verses in the entire Gospel of John. I will admit to being just a little disappointed that we may have missed some really interesting “other things that Jesus did.”

I wonder if the first reading, which was from the Acts of the Apostles, has a similar finality to it. The message doesn’t sound quite as “we’re done here,” but it is also the last verses of the final chapter of Acts.

What’s going on here? Are we done being inspired? No more for us to learn? Should we just say thanks and be on our way?

I don’t think we are going to get off that easy. These readings are on the Seventh Saturday of Easter, the day before Pentecost. Sometimes things become clearer if you read ahead. Especially if the next day is Christmas, Easter, or, as we have today, Pentecost. The readings for Pentecost are familiar, because it is the day that we celebrate the Holy Spirit descending upon the disciples:

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.  [Acts 2:1-4]

Notice that when this happened to the apostles, they were already celebrating Pentecost. How can that be? It turns out that this was already a Jewish festival day. The term Pentecost comes from the Greek word meaning “fiftieth”. It refers to the Jewish festival celebrated on the fiftieth day after First Fruits, also known as the “Feast of Weeks.”

In Judaism the Festival of Weeks is a harvest festival that is celebrated seven weeks and one day after the first day of Passover (the Feast of Unleavened Bread) in Deuteronomy 16:9 or seven weeks and one day after the Sabbath referred to in Leviticus 23:16. The Festival of Weeks is also called the feast of Harvest in Exodus 23:16 and the day of first fruits in Numbers 28:26. In Exodus 34:22 it is called the "firstfruits of the wheat harvest." The date for the "Feast of Weeks" originally came the day after seven full weeks following the first harvest of grain. In Jewish tradition the fiftieth day was known as the Festival of Weeks. The actual mention of fifty days comes from Leviticus 23:16.

The Pentecost we celebrate in the Catholic Church is gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples that happen to fall on the Pentecost, the Jewish Festival of Weeks. 

We are at the end of the Easter Season. The church year starts with Advent, which leads to Christmas, the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus. We then have some “ordinary time,” which is named for being counted (ordinal), not because it is particularly plain. Lent follows Ash Wednesday, which leads up to Holy Week and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The 50 days of the Easter Season match the 50 days the apostles got their final instructions from Jesus, his ascension into heaven, and their receiving the gift of the spirit. This is followed by a whole bunch of “ordinary time” until we wrap around to Advent again.

We are never really at the end because we start over. The Catholic Church has 3 liturgical years that use material from the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to tell and re-tell the story of the life and works of Jesus. Our responsibility as Christians is to learn to listen, to open our hearts to the message, and to engage our brain to understand the message. I’ve found this to be a lifelong process and will admit to enjoying the enlightenment I get from hearing a new perspective or “getting” the connections to other readings in the Bible.

The end of a book in the Bible is an invitation to study it again. Read other books in the Bible and find the connections. Prepare for mass and listen intently to the readings and the homily. You are only half full.

We really aren’t at an ending, but at a point where we should reflect on all that has happened and, like the apostles, go forth filled with the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.