We ran into a bit of a conundrum this month with The Voice: usually people get their copy of The Voice around the 7th of the month, and this year Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) falls on the 5th of March—which means that by the time the next issue of The Voice comes out, Lent will already be in full swing. Yet to start talking about Lent now—in February—feels a little preemptive. So Pastor Treglown and I decided to split the difference: he wrote his article about Lent, and mine is about Epiphany (the season after Christmas).

And in a way, this might feel a little strange. One of us is writing about Lent, which is when we focus on the very end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and the other one is writing about Epiphany, where we celebrate the very beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. To have the beginning so close to the end—it actually reminds me of my vicarage.

Two years ago I went on my vicarage—a one-year internship at a congregation as part of my training at seminary. My wife and I were up at Hope Lutheran in Plant City, FL. And I remember so clearly—the first six months or so, every week someone would come up to one of us and say something like, “Oh, it’s so great to meet you, we’re seasonal, so we’re meeting you for the first time.” But then in the seventh month or so—around January—suddenly it flipped. All the sudden every week someone would come up to one of us and say something like, “We’re about to head up north—goodbye!” It felt like there was no middle—we went right from the beginning to the end, and it felt rather strange.

Yet the fact that in the Church year we go so quickly from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to the end of it should not feel so strange—because from the moment Jesus began his ministry, he always had the end in sight.

If you pay attention to our Gospel readings this month, you can’t miss this—from Jesus’ first sermon in Luke 4:16–30 (one of my favorite passages), to the start of Jesus’ miracles in Luke 4:31–44, to the calling of the disciples in Luke 5:1–11, to the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6:17–38, Jesus is always pointing to himself and to the reason that he came into this world: so that he might die on the cross and rise again to bring life and salvation to the world.

This is the end, the goal, of everything Jesus did on earth, and in a way too it is the end of our faith, this is the goal of our lives: the cross and the empty tomb. Yet in another way, this is only the beginning—because from here, the life of the Church is just like the life of Jesus was: a life of caring for those in need, a life of comforting all who suffer, a life of sharing the good news with everyone, and a life of looking ahead to the end—when Jesus will come again and make all things new.

-Pastor Duncan