TURNING ENDS TO BEGINNINGS
Greetings church family,
This week, I am sharing three Scripture passages, and then an excerpt from Jonathan Cahn’s book, The Book of Mysteries. The excerpt is a conversation between Jewish teacher and one of his students. Take time to read and meditate on the Scripture texts, then enjoy the excerpt!
Matthew 28:1-6 - After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached the tomb. He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards were so shaken by fear of him that they became like dead men. The angel told the women, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
1 Corinthians 15:55-57 - Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! We walked through a dry riverbed that wound around two mountains until we emerged in a small hidden valley. “Look,” said the teacher, as he pointed to the top of one of the mountains.
1 Peter 1:23 - because you have been born again—not of perishable seed but of imperishable—through the living and enduring word of God.
We walked through a dry riverbed that wound around two mountains until we emerged in a small hidden valley. “Look,” said the teacher, as he pointed to the top of one of the mountains. “Do you see that? “Do you see that?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a tomb.”
“As in someone’s buried there?”
“Yes,” he answered, “that kind of tomb.”
“Are we going there?”
“No. It’s a place of death. But that’s what makes it so amazing.”
“Makes what so amazing?”
“What place in this world is more hopeless, more depressing, more sorrowful, more despairing, and more forbidding than a tomb? And yet of all places on earth, it all begins in a tomb.”
“What all begins?”
“Redemption begins. The faith begins. The good news begins. The word of Messiah begins. The message of salvation begins. The Gospel begins. Think about it. It all begins in a tomb. Did you ever consider how radical and completely upside down it is?”
“I never did.”
“What is a tomb? It’s the place where hope ends, where dreams end, where life ends, where everything ends. The tomb is the place of the end. But in God, the tomb, the place of the end, becomes the place of the beginning.”
“Why?”
“It’s the radical way of the kingdom. In God, the journey goes not from life to death, but from death to life. The end is the beginning. So to find life, you must come to the tomb.”
“You must come to a place of death to find life.”
“Only those who come to the place of the end can reach the new beginning. For in Messiah, it is in the place of ending that we find the beginning, and in the place of hopelessness that we find true hope, and in the place of sorrow that we find true joy, and in the place of death that we are born again. For in God, it is in a tomb . . . that we find our birth.”
I am so inspired by the reality that our Heavenly Father is a God of reversals. Isaiah 61 reveals to us that God can change ashes into crowns of beauty, he can change mourning into festive oil, and he can change despair into splendid clothing (in place of the customary sackcloth that depicted grieving). All of this is possible because of Jesus’ resurrection - where what seemed like an end turned out to be an eternal new beginning! Praise God!
What is it in your life that must end? Bring it into Messiah’s tomb. And wait there. For after you’ve come to the end, you’ll find the beginning, a needed beginning. Don’t keep your renewed peace and healing waiting. You’ll re-discover the truth that God is for you, God is with you, and God loves you!
Pastor Chris
