This week my life changed.  Dramatically.  My precious mother is no longer with us.  A new season is here and I still can’t believe it.  She’s gone.

And as I read the Scripture this morning, I read it through perhaps a different set of lenses and seeing life.

Jesus had died too.  A horrific death.  And they were so deeply grieved.  I think they too wondered around saying,

“This is so surreal.  He is gone.  He died.” 

But then he resurrected.  And they had new questions.

“Is this real?”

“Did this really happen?”

“Is he truly alive?”

And he was alive.  He proved it.  And he had been killed.  He proved that too.

A new season had arrived.  And with it a new mission.  A commission.

To bring the message of forgiveness and hope to the world.

Then something else shocking happened.  He left them.  He literally ascended into the clouds and he left them.  A new set of questions came.

“Wait…what?  We just got him back?”

“Will he come back or was that good-bye?”

“What now?”

He had said wait.  So that’s what they did.  The men and women gathered together in prayer and waited.  Then Pentecost came.

Some time later Mark and Peter got together.  Inspired by the Lord, they decided to make an account of all that happened.  All the demon deliverance and teaching with authority, but mostly about the final week of Jesus.  And the cross.

And how did Mark and Peter decide to begin their writings?

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).

Did you catch it?  Because I didn’t until today. Let me show you what I saw.

“The beginning.”

He had died.  He had risen.  He had left them.  But what was the message?

That this was the beginning.

It wasn’t the end.  The end of maybe a new chapter.  The end of the life they knew.  But it was the beginning of another life.  One of purpose and mission and commission.  One of bringing the gospel of hope to the nations.

And you know what?  That’s why I thought of as I was beside my mother.  She had passed away.  And I was so thankful for the hope that I had.  I knew and had peace where she is at.  Not because of her good works but because of the cross of Christ.

I want my life’s mission to be one that continues to spread that hope.

My mother may have died.  In a few days I will be moving.  Somewhere.

But for now. It is not the end.

It is the beginning.