"The Alpha and the Omega: A Grace for All Seasons"

A sermon by: Rev. Katie Crowe November 28, 2010

First Presbyterian Church Charlotte, NC

Ecclesiastes 3:9-15.

Our New Testament lesson this morning comes from a portion of the Apostle John's vision of the end of time which is recorded for us in the book of Revelation. From chapter 21:1-7. Listen now to the Word of God.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God, they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children." Here ends the reading of God's Word.

The author of Ecclesiastes, who we heard from a few moments ago, has an almost casual confidence about him- maybe even an irritating confidence depending on where you find yourself these days. The verses that comprised our Old Testament lesson follow on the heels of the more well-traversed passage that was in many ways the focus of our attention last week with Dr. Wood's retirement- the familiar passage that reads, 'There is a time for every season.' In our text for today the author reminds us that "God has made everything suitable for its time...he has put a sense of past and future into their minds (that's our minds he's referring to), yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." The idea is that we as God's people have a sense as to who God is and what God has done. God has seen fit to reveal God's self in history which can be studied and lived and will continue to be so. But, Ecclesiastes reminds us, we as mere mortals only see as through a mirror dimly now. Ours is a tragically finite and linear perspective that is bound by the limits of our observation and imagination and this is usually the source of most of our anxiety. We don't get to enjoy the vantage point of the Almighty not because God is trying to hide anything from us- using knowledge as power. It is just that we are the creature. Not the creator. The fullness of the past and future simply isn't ours to know.

Centuries later, God's words to John in the Apostle's vision confirm this truth. Not in a way that implies that we are most to be most pitied because of the limited scope of our vision. But in a way that, at its core, is so very freeing because we can rest easy knowing that God is God and we are not. Here amidst the unfolding of a new heaven and a blissful new earth that John describes when God will dwell with his people and wipe every tear from their eyes. When death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more and all things, as God says, are made new, after all is said and done and the vision is complete God proclaims to his people, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."

The Alpha and the Omega. They are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet respectively and they signify completion. Wholeness. Fulfillment. Perfection. It is done. God says. That's it. I am the first and the last- I am all that has been and all that will be. No matter where you stand in history, no matter what you are facing, you can know that I've already accomplished it. Brought it to completion in its perfect way and time and to my glory. It is all in my hands. I've already worked it out, he says, in essence. I know every path reaches its fulfillment in me. Every question finds its answer in me. But this is not God using knowledge as power.

This is knowledge as promise. The power is the promise. The story- every story- ends, God says, with him. In this statement God brackets the whole of human existence. Bookends all of history with himself and with his love. I am the Alpha and the Omega, he says. The beginning and the end. I've got this. Everything that has been and everything that is going to be is and everything in between under the care. God claims the victory so that we can too. The intent of this promise is not to engender jealousy or frustration on the part of the people bound as we are to our creaturely limits. It is intended to inspire hope. Hope in the one who holds the future in his hands. Hope that is so pervasive and so real that it shapes the life and faith of believers and communities of faith indelibly. Shapes them in such a way as to engender the kind of profound peace and clarity and confidence in all things as we see in the author of Ecclesiastes. Who says, "I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by."

Though we may not realize it, each time we approach the sacrament now set before us we participate in and affirm this promise of God's that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who has grace sufficient for all seasons until the end of time. The dramatization of this reality is embedded in the ways that we speak of the sacrament-ways that you know very well. We talk about the sacrament as the Lord's Supper, as Communion, and as the Eucharist and though we tend to use these labels interchangeably and apart from one another they are not the same. And it is really only together that they speak to the fullness of what is happening in the feast before us.

The 'Lord's Supper' takes us back- it reminds us of an event in time, of a meal that occurred in history when a man named Jesus who we call Lord sat down to supper with his friends and followers on an evening during the holy holiday of Passover, took the elements common to their table- bread and wine- and turned them into an object lesson to teach those around him about what was going to happen to him on the cross. As it is for this bread and cup so it will be for me he said. This is my body...broken. This is my blood...poured out. When you do these things going forward, remember me. In his Institutes John Calvin said we must also return to the table time and again to remember Christ's suffering and death. And he says that we remember in order to sustain and strengthen faith so that we can sing songs of thanksgiving to God and to proclaim his goodness in all things now. The promises, Calvin said, declared in the past should feed us spiritually and elicit joy totally. In other words, there is power in the remembering. In remembering Christ's act on the cross, we remember what God has done and we remember who we are. Sinful, broken, loved, and redeemed- a community of those who have been saved by grace, a community that, apart from grace, is nothing.

But we don't just understand the table as a reminder of grace given to us in the past- in coming to the table we are fed by an active, present grace as well. A grace that nourishes and strengthens us for our life of faith today. Thus the word, 'Communion' which reminds us that we are in a life-giving fellowship with one another and with God and Jesus Christ that we enjoy by the power of the Holy Spirit right now- in the Greek we would call this koinonia. In this communion, this fellowship, we find grace at this table because here at the table we have the reality of our sinfulness for which Christ died reflected back to us like a mirror and for all to see, and yet here we experience the reality that we are deeply loved. Loved by God and bound in love in community with those who also know that it is by grace alone that they too have been saved. This is the place where we lay down our pride and savor the truth that in God's grace we are all as one beggar telling another where to find bread. Here we affirm that our common life together is bound by Emmanuel- God with us- and no matter what. God with us in the person of Jesus Christ extending grace so long ago. God with us now in the Holy Spirit supplying our need today. God with us always until the close of the age.

Which takes us to 'Eucharist'- from a Greek word, eucharistos, which means thanksgiving and eucharista which means grateful. We as children of God come to this table with thanksgiving because we know that every story ends with God and for that we are grateful. The Eucharist snatches us out of that limited scope of our finite vision- that creaturely vantage point that can cause such frustration and launches us into John's vision of the end of time- the vision of the new heaven and new earth when all things are made new. It takes us to the end of history when the powers and trials of this world fall away and God takes his place as the rightful center of gravity around with the entire universe orbits and this time everyone knows it. Heavenly beings know it. Humans know it. Nations know it. Death knows it because death will be no more and so all are gathered in praise. "This is the joyful feast of the people of God.” Which is to say God will set a feast for saints from all places and times at the end of time. And when we come to the table we anticipate and participate in that Advent- that coming of God’s reign today when we announce publicly at this table that it is in this promise that we ground our identity and it is in this promise we will find our hope. At this table, looking back at the sacrifice, savoring the feast of communion now, we enjoy a foretaste of the future God has prepared and it is good.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega", he says, "The beginning and the end," and the sacrament takes us there. The grace of the past in the Lord's Supper enables the Communion of the present, which sustains us in the Eucharist- the sure and living hope of of the future in all things. God has been faithful. God is faithful now. And God will be faithful still.

Although today is the first Sunday of Advent it does feel just little bit like the day after Christmas. The trimmings of the festivities of our great and much anticipated celebration of Dr. Wood's retirement last week have been tucked away, all the presents have been opened. We have also pushed back from the table of our Thanksgiving feasts and are returning to the daily work of counting calories and cost, and we are seeing that we have some work to do ahead of us as a church in order to get into the shape we want to be in. We are seeing that we will not be able to crash diet our way to success in our stewardship campaign but have to make some lifestyle choices as a community which will entail the daily commitment of us all if we are to achieve lasting success. Similarly the reality may be starting to sink in that our next Senior Pastor will not arrive magically one cold winter's night, sack stuffed with the fulfillment of our every expectation in tow. Rather, that person will be brought here with the diligent and daily prayers of all of you, and as yet another gift of grace given as so many are in due season and in the way that God alone intends. The way forward is clear in terms of process, but the outcome can and will at times feel anything but sure. Bound as we are to our very human perspective, we have a sense of past and future in our minds, but the fullness of it all is not ours yet to know which can leave us feeling a little anxious inside.

Yes, there is work to be done as there is always work to do. And so we come to the table to affirm the promises of God. To affirm for ourselves in all the circumstances of our lives, to affirm as people of God’s church universal and First Presbyterian Church in particular, to affirm as a hymn triumphant in a broken and hurting world that God has been faithful to our past. God is faithful now. And God will be faithful still. So come to the table to affirm for your lives and for your families and for the life of your family of faith that you have been brought this far through the past on this promise of God's on which you now feed. That your present is held secure in the grace you now enjoy. And that your future- no matter what you face today- is already accomplished in his love. You have not been led this far to be forsaken. So come to the table and hear and see again how on the cross God showed you his heart, and you are deep within it. Recall body broken and blood poured out to say, Emmanuel, God is with us. Feast on the rich promise that God is as he has always been and that is faithful. And glimpse the great future that we are confident stands before us because we know that every story begins and ends in the arms of God.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, God said. These are the bookends of our life and of our very existence. The truth and the promise that brackets our lives, our church, our world’s history and all of eternity. Which, if you look at it, really is like a kind of embrace. God wrapping his arms around our past and our future with infinite tenderness and love and infinite concern for his creation, for his body here on earth, for all of us. It is God's embrace holding you in hope in the present. It is his outstretched arms of painful crucifixion putting to death the sin and despair of the past. And it is the blessing of benediction to go with boldness into the future that has already been prepared. Because God's got this. He who promises is faithful.

God has made everything suitable for its time, Ecclesiastes says. And there is nothing better for us than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we live. It is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in the work that is at hand so come, eat and drink. Remember that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken way that all stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

Let us pray.

Lord, feed us by this sacrament and fill us with such hope that we would be powerless to do anything other than stand in awe before you offering you our lives in gratitude, thanksgiving and praise saying Hallelujah. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.