Now there are also many other things that Jesus did (John 21:25).

A few years ago my Dad and I drove up to Cherry Log, Georgia to hear Fred Craddock present a morning long seminar to pastors and church leaders. Craddock's topic: "Thirteen Ways to End a Sermon."

I didn't want to admit it then - and I'm reluctant to admit it now - but I didn't know there was thirteen ways to end a sermon. Fred Craddock, however, is a brilliant teacher and he leisurely worked through thirteen concluding strategies one by one, providing examples along the way. Good stuff, if you're into that kind of thing.

What I came away with was this: endings matter. Craddock said that preachers and teachers ought to give as much or more attention to their ending as they do to the body of their message.

You have to know how to land the plane, as the saying goes.

So here I sit, finishing off a Java Chip Frappuccino, not preaching but writing, and trying to decide how to land this particular plane. I'm close. The runway is in sight. The landing gear is down. My seat is in the upright position and my tray table is closed . . . you get the idea.

But how to end? Thankfully, there's always the text of the scripture.

**********

I see John laying aside his pen.

He has labored long and hard to tell the story of Jesus. His purpose throughout has been to move his readers to faith in Jesus. He has written so that they might believe and that by believing they might have life in the name of Jesus (John 20:31). A worthy aim for any writer.

But now he comes to the end, having shared an awkward episode in which Peter tries to stick his nose into what Jesus has planned for the beloved disciple (John himself). Here John pauses.

Perhaps he leans back, rubbing his eyes, searching for a fitting conclusion to the narrative. There is so much to say, so much to tell. After a few moments he takes up his pen again and adds these final words: "Now there were also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written."

The end.

One of the things that often keeps us from beginning a walk with Jesus, or hinders us as we try to be faithful in following him, is that there is much we don't know. John settles this matter for us. There is indeed much we don't know. There are many things that Jesus did that were not written, not in John's gospel and perhaps not in the other three. John could not tell us everything. He freely admits this. But he did tell us enough.

This in itself is good news. We do not need to know everything. And what we do know at this moment is enough. Don't let your questions keep you from following Jesus - and don't ever believe that Jesus can't handle your questions.

Jesus invites you to follow him. John has written that you might know who Jesus is and believe. And you know enough right now to do both, to follow and believe.

For John, that confidence gave him his ending. Perhaps the same could be your beginning.

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for the apostle John and the way he told us the story of your Son. We thank you that even now when we read these words we can know the one who came to us full of grace and truth. Bless what we have read and pondered, that we might come to believe and know him better - and have life in his name. We ask this in the name of Jesus, the word made flesh. Amen.

Mark H. Crumpler
Pastor for Teaching and Spiritual Formation
www.markthis.blogspot.com