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In Field of Dreams, we have a lot of endings going on. Ray Kinsella is trying to make a living on a farm, a living he is terrible at. Then he hears a voice telling him, “if you build it, he will come”, leading him to take some of his prime planting area and turning it into a baseball field. This journey takes him around the country where he is (justifiably) assaulted by, then travels with, his longtime hero writer Terrance Mann. He collects the ghost of a man who gave up his dream of playing in the majors to become a physician, Dr. “Moonlight” Graham. And all this time, his brother-in-law is doing everything to force Ray to sell the farm.
At one point, Ray’s brother-in-law gets contentious. At this point, Terrance Mann, sitting with Ray and his family in the stands by the field says, “if you build it, they will come.” He says that people, when hearing about the field with the ghosts of former baseball players playing on it, will come and willingly hand over a small fee to see the field. Even in the debt Ray faces, there may still be hope.
Then Ray’s brother-in-law gets really upset and accidentally knocks his niece of the stands. Karin’s parents rush to her aid, and it seems like she can’t breathe.
At this moment “Moonlight” Graham has a choice. The ghosts can’t continue to play if they step off the side of the field to the stands. But he does. Where there was a young ball player before, now we see Dr. Graham in his twilight years, medical bag in hand.
The problem is fairly easy to solve. Karin has some food stuck in her throat. A simple firm pat on the back, and Karin is returned to normal.
Ray realizes what has happened and apologies, yet “Moonlight” is alright. He lived a good life. Now in his afterlife, he got to do the one thing he wished he had a ball player, mainly stare down a major league pitcher while at bat and wink like he knows something the pitcher doesn’t.
There are a lot of hard times that Ray and his family faces in the movie. There are a lot of endings too. Even after this scene, Terrance Mann journeys into the mysterious corn field the players disappear to in order to get a chance to explore and see what is beyond. And of course, the film ends with Ray finally being able to reconcile with the ghost of his dad.
What seem like endings often aren’t the end, just as there are sometimes shining moments before those endings come. At the end, our Lord, our Faith are all about hope.
We see this throughout our readings today. In Job, we hear his response after God’s words to him, which we got to hear the start of last week.
Now Job’s words are hard to translate, and there are many debates on how to do so and what his words mean.
When Job says, “I despise myself”, it would be better to translate the words into “I melt away.” It is not so much Job admitting he did anything wrong. If we believe him in his conversations with his friends, he isn’t. What is he is saying is likely just that he accepts what the Lord has said. Further, when he says “repent” in our reading, we should really translate that as “comforted” in that God’s presence, and proof the Lord has been present and listening all along, has given Job the comfort he needed.
Then we get the end of the book, thought to be a later addition to the work (which shouldn’t matter as it doesn’t make it any less holy or any less a part of Scripture). Here Job receives back all that he lost and then some. It doesn’t make it all better or worth it. After all, Job did loose some of his children in his hard times. It does show, just as with Job’s final words, that even in the darkest of times, with God’s presence there is hope.
It is the hope our Psalm gives us in its response to this reading, the hope that God is with us in the dark times and will see us through.
In Hebrews, we see what the author of the letter has been building up to. He shows us the depths and darkness of humanity. We cannot save ourselves. Even our priests cannot do so, for they must make sacrifice for their own sins before offering sacrifices for ours.
That is the power of Jesus. Though all seems hopeless, He brings us the end we need. Jesus can be that high priest we need who doesn’t have to sacrifice for His own sins first. He can offer us the salvation and redemption we have been looking for.
Then we have our Gospel lesson. Here, we see Bartimaeus, blind and in need of mercy, receiving the healing that he needs. All this happens because he was willing to ask, willing to have Faith.
The placement of this story is important. Yes, it continues our journey through Mark this Season immediately from our lesson last week. Where it continues is important though. Following this, we see Jesus’ journey into Jerusalem, the very one He has been discussing with His Disciples. There, we will see Jesus die.
Before His death, we receive a little bit of hope. We receive a little bit of healing. We receive it just outside Jericho even, a city we see back in the Book of Joshua as it fell for its failure to accept God. Even as Jesus is heading to the Cross, we see the true point of His mission to make all things new.
What we see here in our readings today reflects our move through the seasons of the church year. We are moving closer and closer to the end of the Season after Pentecost. Soon we will approach the Season of Advent.
There’s a circular and cyclical nature to all this. We end the Season of Pentecost looking to Jesus as the Lord who will return at the end times. The end of days is what Advent remembers too. It is what Advent was originally set aside to remind us of.
As we look to the Second Coming of our Lord and the end of times, we then circle back to remember His First Coming into this world as a tiny baby. From there we we remember Jesus’ life and ministry along with His Death and Resurrection.
When things are dark, it seems like there is no way out. It seems like there is no hope. But there is always hope. There is always hope with Jesus. With Him, we know the bad times will end and be transformed as they were for Job, for Bartimaeus, for Ray Kinsella, and for us even. With our Lord Jesus, death and the dark times do not have the final say, for all will be made new in the end.