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"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.
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