After Jesus was crucified, dead, and entombed, the anxiety of the disciples must have multiplied most uncomfortably. Their dreams of the future had crumbled in the hands of an angry and sinful crowd. It must have felt like they had come to the end of the book. A promising story had ended tragically, so it seemed.

Then the resurrected Jesus appeared to them. The book that had been closed sadly and reluctantly was again opened with new joy. The story, after all, had not ended. The cross was not the final full-stop, only a comma.

Jesus met the disciples by saying, “Peace be with you” (Luke 24:36). They were, not surprisingly, startled. Jesus asked, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your mind?” (Luke 24:38).

Somehow and strangely, this conversation seems to be a continuation of that found in John 14, before Jesus was crucified. Clearly, the disciples had not fully understood what Jesus had earlier tried to tell them.

But this time it was different. The disciples encountered the risen Christ. It was the dawn of a new day in their lives, a decisive turning point in their stories.

As they remembered all that Jesus had taught them — divine forgiveness, new birth, eternal life, the kingdom of God — they began to see traces of a larger Story. Their stories were woven and stitched into that Story. They began to understand how that Story began and how it would end. They were changed men after realising that they were part of a story that was larger than themselves. They marched forward into the dark night knowing for certain that their journey would end with a new dawn. As changed men, they changed the world.

Two thousand years have come and gone since then. History has twisted and turned, run and stumbled through time. Billions of personal stories have been pasted on it, flapping in the winds of time, containing untold stories of little dreams, moments of joy and unshared pain.

Each of us also has a story to tell. We meet each new year wondering how the story will develop and how it will end. How long more do we have before our stories become another piece of paper flapping in the winds of time?

It is one thing to read a story in a book. It is another to exist in one that is unfolding. Who knows how the story will proceed and how it will end?

The Bible tells us how history will end. Jesus is coming again, and when that happens, a new earth and heaven will appear. There will be no more death, no more tears, no more pain. The old order will be no more (Revelation 21; 22).

If you belong to this Jesus, then His Story becomes the vehicle for your story. The uncertainty of your fragile story can ride on the certainty of His Story. His Story gives stability and hope to our stories.

The final hour of history will be Christ’s. He has the final say; the final hour is His. If we belong to Him, the final hour is also ours.

The uncertainty of the immediate future must be lived with the certainty of the final hour. For the follower of Christ, there is the promise of glory that will mark the end of the Story. Christ invites us, with our little uncertain stories, to enter His glorious Story, to become part of His unfolding Story. When we do so, we can turn every corner of time, with its immediate uncertain future, with peace and poise.

Consider this:
To be baptised and united with Christ is to share in His eternal destiny. In Him the final hour is ours. How does this certainty change the way you deal with your anxieties?

Excerpted and adapted from A Feast for the Soul by Robert Solomon. © 2005 by Robert Solomon. Used by permission of Armour Publishing. All rights reserved.