In every beginnig there is an end!

Luke 7:11-17

Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up.’ And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people.’ And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.

Food for thought!

Today, we mark All Souls Day! The dead! Those who ended their journey in the life as we know it. They ended this life; they started that life. Their ending marked a new beginning.

As you know, Jesus raised three dead people from the dead. One had just died (Luke 8:40-56); the second is this one of today's gospel, who was being carried to be buried; the third is Lazarus that had been in the tomb four days (Jn 11:1-44).

What is noteworthy about all of them, is the moment they were brought back to life: one had just died; another was on the way to the cemetery; the last was in the cemetery already for four days. It means that, for Jesus, time means nothing. He will rise those who died long ago, those who died recently, and those who will have died. He will rise us all who believe that he will.

What Jesus showed us by this miracle and the miracle of his own resurrection is that in every ending there is a beginning. Susan Hayward once noted that nature demonstrates that almost everything occurs in cycles. The earth rotates on a daily cycle. The moon evolves around the earth on a monthly cycle, and the earth revolves around the sun in an annual cycle. During the year, the four seasons take us from cold to warm and again to cold as plants and animals cycle from a dormant to an active stage and then, as another winter approaches, again become dormant. Tides flow daily toward, and away from, the shore. Each day closes with a sunset, which is followed by a sunrise. Winter ends; spring begins. And so it goes. Every beginning has an ending, and all endings herald a new beginning: life out of death.

Our lives also have seasons and cycles. Each of us experiences an endless flow of beginnings and endings. Every season of our life has a beginning and an ending that leads to a new beginning. Childhood ends and adolescence begins; adolescence ends and adulthood begins; young adulthood ends and middle age begins; middle age ends and old age begins.

We generally like beginnings-we celebrate the new. We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. On the other hand, many people resist endings and even attempt to delay them.

Much of our resistance to endings stems from our unawareness, or inability, to realize that we are one with nature. Often we don’t feel the joy of an ending, perhaps because we forget that in each ending are the seeds of beginning. Although endings can be painful, they are less so if, instead of resisting them, we look at time as a natural process of nature: as leaves budding in the spring, coming to full leaf in the summer, turning red and gold in autumn, and dropping from the trees in winter. It can be comforting to comprehend that we are an integral part of the great scheme of nature.

The powerful potential behind change lies in the possibility that each new beginning will bring us greater joy and freedom than we have ever known. So, don’t resist letting go of old ideas and attitudes; practice death. The less resistance we have, the less pain we experience in making the journey through the many cycles of our lives. Life demands change.

D. H. Lawrence said, “We are changing, we have got to change, and we can no more help it than leaves can help going yellow and coming loose in autumn.”

All this means one thing: “Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state.” -Mohandas K. Gandhi

For a moment, imagine you are a caterpillar. You have this strange urge to spin a cocoon around your body-certain death! How difficult it must be to let go of the only life you have ever known, a life of crawling on the earth in search of food. Yet, if you are willing to trust, as caterpillars seem able to do (caterpillars are more trusting than we humans),  the end of your life as an earthbound worm may be the beginning of your life as a beautiful winged creature of the sky.

We can see each ending as a tragedy and lament and resist it, or we can see each ending as a new beginning and a new birth into greater opportunities. What the caterpillar sees as the tragedy of death, the butterfly sees as the miracle of birth.