Great Endings: The Greatest Adventure

“Well I've made up my mind, anyway. I want to see mountains again, Gandalf – mountains; and then find somewhere where I can rest. In peace and quiet, without a lot of relatives prying around, and string of confounded visitors hanging on the bell. I might find somewhere where I can finish my book. I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.”

—The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

Summer is drawing to a close. Amid the chaos of shopping for school supplies that I swear we had plenty of at the end of last year—how do scissors, binders, and unused notebooks simply disappear?—and buying new school clothes because the outfits we JUST BOUGHT at the beginning of summer no longer fit children who stubbornly refuse to stop growing, my mind has turned toward endings.

A truly great ending is often not what we imagined it would be.

Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a story I return to again and again. Though it is not exactly an allegory, Tolkien’s devout Catholic faith leaves its fingerprints throughout his epic tale: in its vision of small, ordinary acts of goodness and love; in its insistence that courage can come from unlikely places; and in its conviction that even the smallest person can help turn the course of the future.

Near the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo Baggins speaks to the wizard Gandalf about his desire to escape into a quiet retirement. He has even imagined the final line of the book he is writing about his life: 

“And he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.”

Bilbo’s imagined conclusion is one we can probably understand. After his adventures, he wants peace. He wants rest. He wants a comfortable and dignified ending. Many of us hope for something similar: that the difficult parts of life will eventually settle down, that the problems will be resolved, and that we will arrive safely at something resembling “happily ever after.”

The Gospel of Matthew also ends with a promise reaching toward the end of all things. Jesus says to his disciples:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19–20).

There is a certain symmetry between the two endings: “to the end of his days” and “to the end of the age.” But that is where the similarity ends.

Matthew’s Gospel does not conclude with a promise that the disciples will live quietly and comfortably ever after. Jesus does not promise them ease or security. He gives them a mission. They are to go, teach, serve, and create communities. The road ahead will demand courage, labor, and sacrifice. 

What Jesus promises is not an easy ending. What he promises is his presence.

Perhaps that is what makes an ending truly hopeful. The best endings don’t always answer every question or tie every loose thread into a neat bow. They don’t pretend that hardship is over or that nothing difficult lies ahead. Instead, they reveal something that changes how we understand everything that came before.

At the end of Matthew, the disciples discover that they have not been abandoned. The risen Christ will accompany them into whatever comes next. They are being called to something greater, and the one who calls them will walk alongside them into the unknown.

As summer ends and another season begins, we may not know exactly what lies ahead. There will be new routines, new responsibilities, unexpected challenges, and perhaps a few endings we did not choose. Faith does not promise that every chapter will be easy or that every story will conclude exactly as we hoped.

It gives us a better promise:

We do not enter the next chapter alone.

Christ is with us in the endings, in the beginnings, and in every uncertain page between—always, even to the end of the age.


Rev. Ryan Young