The beginning and the end
He began to say to them,
‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ Luke 4:21
Read Luke 24:44—49
Here Jesus places himself at the heart of my Bible. He invites me to see him not as a latecomer to the story, as much as he wants in some ways to surprise me. Yes, he always wants me to be delighted and somewhat startled when I see him. I believe that. He always wants me to meet him as though I haven’t quite seen him like that before, endlessly new. To those who have, he would say, more will be given. At the same time (this is what is equally startling) I am to see him before he comes, in the law and the prophets and the psalms. Hints and whispers and types and promises, seeds waiting to sprout, ready to grow into a promised harvest.
Prayer
Lord, I thank you tonight, and I declare this night that you have come to me out of all the promises of God. You come because you have always been coming. You are here because you have always been. There is no creation without your active presence. There is no human history apart from you. Yet you are always new. You renew your creation. You renew human life. You come to me new and fresh, and you have renewed me this very day. You are the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.[1]
[1] Revelation 22:13