Ending or Beginning?

 

Photo by Tulumnes 2013

New Year’s Eve and its celebrations are a great reminder that any ending always leads to a new beginning. During the countdown of the last moments of 2025, we thanked God for His blessings, provision and protection throughout the year, and also for His giving us a fresh start in 2026. As His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), we can begin every morning and every year with renewed hope that He will continue the good work He began in us (Philippians 1:6).

The cycle of beginning and ending permeates our lives. The sun sets on one day and rises again the next (Matthew 5:45). We may end our term in high school and begin college. We may leave one job or ministry and begin another, ideally in response to God’s direction rather than in rebellion against it. As Clive Staples Lewis, British author of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” wrote, “There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

God created many wonderful examples of how an apparent ending leads to a new beginning. A plant dies and goes to seed, but the apparently lifeless seed germinates and gives rise to a new plant (1 Corinthians 15:36-38). A lowly, earthbound caterpillar encases itself in a chrysalis and secretes enzymes that completely liquefy itself. Yet from that biochemical soup a butterfly forms, eventually struggling to break free from its shroud and emerge in a brilliant burst of color and flight. A baby ends its nine months of silence in the darkness and security of the womb with a triumphant (or outraged?) cry heralding its physical birth (John 16:21).

Even the musical scale ends on the same note with which the next octave begins. Christ Himself is the Beginning and the Ending, the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last (Revelation 1:8,11; 21:6; 22:13). He is the self-existent great I AM Who existed in eternity past since before time began (John 8:58), and Who will live and reign throughout eternity future as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14; 19:16).

His death on the cross to pay for our sins (Romans 3:25) was the essential ending to His earthly life so that He could rise again, becoming the firstborn with a glorified body (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:20-23), so that all who trust Him will also live forever (John 3:16). The destruction of most life on earth with the great flood in Noah’s day led to a cleansed, renewed planet populated by the remnant of faithful Noah and his family, and by the creatures God commanded him to bring into the ark (Genesis 7-10).

One day, after the Great Tribulation and Battle of Armageddon in which Jesus Christ will defeat the enemies of Israel, Satan, sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:24-28), the heavens and earth will burn up with a fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10), giving way to the new heavens and new earth (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13) where Jesus Christ will reign forever in the Heavenly City (Revelation 21:1-5; Hebrews 11:16; 12:22).

What are the endings we must face on our way to the New Jerusalem? The first is that we must come to the end of ourselves. Only when we realize that we are sinners, doomed to hell, with no merit or power of our own to save us (Romans 3:23), can we realize that we need a Savior, turn to Him for forgiveness, repent of our sins, and ask Him to save us and enter our heart as Lord of our new life (1 John 1:9; Revelation 3:20; Ezekiel 36:26; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Galatians 4:6).

Then we are born again, beginning a new life in the family of God (John 3:5-8). No longer are we His enemies and children of the devil, for now we are God’s children (1 John 3:10), joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), part of His body the church (Colossians 1:18,24), betrothed to our Bridegroom (Isaiah 61:10), and ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) and co-laborers with Him in the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 3:9). Our first step of obedience should be believer’s baptism, or water immersion, symbolizing our identification with His death, burial and resurrection (Matthew 28:19).

Like the unsaved, born-again believers experience physical death, unless they are still alive when Christ returns for his children. Nothing on this earth seems like a more final ending than death, but for the child of God, it is the beginning of new life with Jesus Christ and fellow believers. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). We will experience that joy forever, for we received the gift of eternal life the moment we were saved by faith (John 3:16).

Even those who are living when Christ returns will experience the end of life in their physical body. But what a glorious new beginning! At the Rapture, our aging, frail, limited earthly bodies will be instantly transformed into glorified bodies like that of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:35-38). Sin, death, pain, sorrow, illness and aging shall be no more! In their place is eternal, abundant life (John 10:10) in a body without physical limitation, and with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), for we shall know Him as He now knows us (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Then we shall live forever in a mansion He has uniquely designed for each of us (John 14:1-3), in the Heavenly City so resplendent that it defies physical description (Revelation 21:10-27). We shall have infinite time to enjoy Him and our loved ones in Him, the beauty of our surroundings, the fulfillment of worshiping Him in complete surrender using the talents and gifts He gave us, and the purpose and productivity of meaningful work uniquely suited to our abilities and personality.

So let us not fear or regret any earthly ending, but instead let us joyously anticipate the next beginning He has planned for us, and ultimately the blessed, living hope of the Rapture and eternal life with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!   

Copyright 2026 Laurie Collett