The End and the Beginning
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
This Sunday we conclude our long journey through the book of Deuteronomy by turning to its final chapter—and the final chapter of the entire Torah. Strikingly, the story does not end with triumph, but with waiting. Moses, after forty years of leading God’s people, is allowed to see the Promised Land but not enter it. Israel stands on the threshold, poised for the future but not yet living in it.
Why does the Bible end the Torah this way? Because it reveals something essential about life with God: we are “already and not yet” people. We live between promise and fulfillment, redemption and restoration, rescue and homecoming. On Christ the King Sunday—standing at the hinge between the end of the Christian year and the beginning of Advent—Deuteronomy 34 invites us to embrace this posture of faithful waiting. We wait for our labors to be fulfilled, for God’s kingdom to come in all its fullness, and for the true Leader who will finally bring us home.
As we prepare for worship, consider where in your own life you find yourself on the threshold, longing for God’s future while trusting God’s presence in the present.
Reflection and Discussion Questions
Where in your life do you resonate with Moses’ experience of “unfinished work” or unfulfilled longings? How might God be inviting you to trust Him with what feels incomplete?
Deuteronomy ends with God’s people on the border of the land, not yet inside. What does it look like for you to live faithfully “on the threshold”—between the already and the not yet?
What helps you stay hopeful and anchored when the world feels far from “kingdom-like”?
Deuteronomy 34 looks ahead to a greater Leader than Moses. How does Jesus fulfill the longings this chapter leaves open? What aspects of Jesus’ leadership do you most need right now?
Christ the King Sunday leads directly into Advent. How does the theme of waiting shape your spiritual life at this time of year?
Deuteronomy 34:1–11
Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”
And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.
Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.
Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land.
Read along with us this fall! Download our Deuteronomy Reading Guide here.