I Am the Alpha and the Omega

Revelation 22:12–17 NIV

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

One thing I love about being back here in Michigan is Blue Moon ice cream. Blue Moon is a flavor that seems to be regional here to Michigan. I have never seen it at any ice cream stores anywhere else in the country. Full disclosure; I have not done an exhaustive search of every ice cream store around the country. But here in Michigan, all my favorite ice cream places have Blue Moon flavor ice cream. Houseman’s in Byron Center has it. Plainwell Ice Cream on M-89 has it. House of Flavors up in Ludington has it. I have boycotted camping at the Conference Grounds because they refused my request to have Blue Moon ice cream in the camp store. However, if the right person was working the counter, I could get a Superman cone—only the blue part. Blue Moon is my absolute favorite flavor ice cream ever. All the years I lived in Denver I missed having Blue Moon ice cream close by.

And if you have never had Blue Moon ice cream before, and if you were to ask me what Blue Moon ice cream tastes like, I don’t think I have an answer for you. I am not at all sure what to describe Blue Moon ice cream as tasting like. Some people have described it as a citrus lemony raspberry. Some people say it is more of a slightly tart vanilla almond. I have heard one person describe it as the milk that is left in the bowl after you eat a serving of Fruit Loops cereal. I don’t know that any one of those things accurately captures the essence that is Blue Moon ice cream. I am not sure what it is, I just know I like it and I always order it when I am out for ice cream.

And maybe, in fact, it is the mystery of not exactly being able to know that makes Blue Moon ice cream so appealing to me. I am drawn to it every time precisely because it is a mystery that I cannot fully explain. It is the mystery and wonder that invites me to always keep coming back for a single scoop waffle cone of my favorite Blue Moon flavor. And somehow, if I actually knew what ingredients give Blue Moon ice cream its mysterious flavor, I am afraid that just might ruin the experience for me. I don’t even want to know; I just want to have it.

And here’s the thing. I can enjoy snacking on a Blue Moon ice cream cone without having to know or explain exactly everything about its flavor.

Today we get to this final ‘I Am’ saying of Jesus. This time the apostle John does not include it in his gospel as he did for the other seven ‘I Am’ statements we have been looking at all summer. This time John records this final ‘I Am’ saying of Jesus in the book of Revelation—the very last book of the Bible. And it comes at the very end of chapter 22, the last section in the last chapter of the last book of the Bible. So, how in the world do you wrap up and form a conclusion to this massive collection of 66 books revealed to dozens of authors over the span of more than a thousand years? I mean, we have to wrap up and tie together some pretty big themes. If there ever were a place to leave us with some kind of single summary of the Bible, it seems like this would be the place for the Holy Spirit to make that known. So then, in some sense this passage looks back upon the previous 66 books of the Bible and the thousands of years in which God has revealed himself to his people. This ‘I Am’ statement is loaded with meaning that points beyond this one single passage. Let’s pull some of that together here.

Imminence

We should remember that these words in Revelation are written by the apostle John. He traveled with Jesus, accompanying Jesus throughout his earthly ministry. John got to witness the real-life human experience of Jesus upon this earth. John was familiar with what Jesus actually looked like. John knew the sound of Jesus’ voice. John spent years of his life as close to Jesus as you are close to the people sitting around you right now.

It is the apostle John who begins his gospel with the declaration that the word became flesh and has dwelled among us. God himself become incarnate as a human. I imagine that this was something to which John and his fellow disciples had to adjust. This idea of God being so close, so relatable, so knowable was brand new. We should remember that for the Jewish people who lived in Israel there was a very special group of Levite priests who were allowed into the inner parts of the temple only at certain times and on certain occasions, and only after performing a series of ceremonial washings and offering ceremonial sacrifices. But ordinary people just were not allowed to be close to God. it just didn’t work that way.

For us who live two thousand years later, we’ve gotten pretty used to the idea that God came as a man and lived upon this earth. In fact, even though it was two thousand years ago, we still use very close language to describe it. We talk about the ways in which Jesus lives in our hearts. God doesn’t get much closer than that. We talk about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus. That’s getting pretty close to God.

We have a word to describe this kind of closeness to Jesus. We refer to it as God’s imminence. Imminent is a word that we use to describe something that is right upon us. Often, when we refer to something that is imminent, we mean it is so close that it cannot be stopped or turned away. On Thursday evening this past week, I was out in the car and there were dark clouds pressing on the horizon and lightning was flashing all around. There was an imminent storm. There was only a matter of minutes till rain was pouring. Something imminent is so close that it is practically right upon you.

In Jesus, the imminence of God became plainly evident. We talk about that imminent closeness of Jesus in the first statement of the Heidelberg Catechism; that my only comfort in life and death is that I belong body and soul to my faithful savior Jesus Christ; that he also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. This is the kind of imminence that David writes about in Psalm 139. “You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.” We sing about it in hymns like “What A Friend I Have In Jesus.”

And all of this is true. Jesus does live in our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the church. God is so close to you and knows each one of us so intimately that he is always attentive to each one of us. Jesus calls himself our brother. Jesus tells us that God the Father is our “Abba;” an Aramaic word that means daddy.

John knew all this. John is referred to in the gospels as the disciple whom Jesus loved. In fact, perhaps John and the other close followers of Jesus knew this imminence of God so well that Jesus had to give a reminder that there is more to him than that.

Transcendence

In these closing words to the book of Revelation which also serve as the closing words to the entire Bible, Jesus refers to himself as the Alpha and the Omega. Those are letters in the Greek alphabet. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. It is sort of like saying A and Z in our alphabet. The beginning and the end; the first and the last. Jesus is giving a reminder of just how large and beyond us he extends. Jesus was there before the creation of the universe. Jesus remains forever eternal and unchanging for days and months and years to come.

Jesus, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit are all powerful and ever present and eternal. David speaks about this as well in Psalm 139. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” God is so completely beyond and above us that nothing escapes him.

We have a word for this we well. We say that God is transcendent; that he is otherworldly, beyond and above. God is in a place that is unreachable and unattainable by anyone here on earth. In other religions of the world, the transcendence of their gods meant that they were distant and disconnected. The mythical gods of the Greeks lived on Mount Olympus, a place where no mortal human could ever go. And in Greek mythology, those gods such as Zeus and Poseidon cared little about humankind except as a game for their amusement.

Sometimes maybe God feels a little bit that way too; so distant, so removed, so far away, so otherworldly – beyond our reach. After all, God’s perfection and God’s holiness separate him from anything unholy and imperfect. We see a picture of that in Isaiah 6 where the prophet Isaiah enters the throne room of God and realizes that he is unclean and unfit to be there in the presence of the Almighty; and he cries out, “Woe is me; I am ruined!”

Except that God’s love for the world he created keeps him faithfully intent upon its redemption. And this is where the transcendence of God bridges over to the imminence of Jesus. That God is somehow both transcendent and imminent.

If you are familiar with the music of Handel’s oratorio The Messiah, then you see a picture of this transcendence/imminence collision. In the well-known Hallelujah Chorus, the choir sings the words of Revelation 19, King of kings and Lord of lords; and he shall reign for ever and ever. It is a picture of God’s transcendence over and above all creation. When The Messiah is performed, every instrument plays and every voice sings and—historically—the entire audience stands during this number. It is loud and majestic and the auditorium is filled with music. And then, when the Hallelujah Chorus is done, the audience sits down, the choir sits down, and only one voice of the alto soloist is heard singing the words of Job 19:25, “I know that my redeemer liveth.” Imminence. In that one moment of the turnaround from the Hallelujah Chorus to the alto solo there is a collision of God transcendent and God imminent. The two come together.

Greek mythology spoke of demigods. The offspring of the Greek gods and mortal humans. These mythical demigods such as Hercules and Perseus were said to be half god and half man, sharing traits of both. Is that what Jesus is? Half god and half man? In this way God has moments of showing up as imminent, and moments of pulling above in transcendence. And so God somehow Ping-Pongs back and forth between these moments of transcendence and imminence.

But that’s not right. Jesus is not half god and half man. Jesus does not bounce back and forth between transcendent majesty and imminent connection. Jesus is not changing hats and switching uniforms. He is not going back and forth between one and then the other. Jesus is not either/or. He is both/and. Jesus is 100% fully God and also 100% fully human both at the same time. He is both reigning in transcendent majesty and imminently residing within the hearts of his church all at once.

I Am

Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and end; the first and last. He is the one who always was, always is, and always will be. He is the God who revealed himself to Moses so long ago in the burning bush and revealed his name, Yahweh – I am that I am. Yahweh is the Hebrew language form of the verb “to be,” except without any verb tense defined. Past tense, present tense, future tense. Yahweh is all of the above. Our English Bibles often translate Yahweh as “I Am” or “I am that I am.” But I think a better translation is, “I am who I was who I always will be.”

And so, when Jesus says in Revelation 22, “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life,” he invites each one of us into this mystery of his grace. He says, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” This is an invitation to receive the perfect righteousness of Jesus and be counted as one whose robe has been washed clean in the blood of the lamb of God; the sacrifice of Jesus in which he took our sins upon himself and exchanged it for his righteousness placed upon us. Jesus says I am all of that…bread of life, light of the world, resurrection, way, truth, life, the gate, the shepherd, the vine, first and last, beginning and end.

This is a mystery. I am not sure I can explain exactly how all of this works. I am not sure how it is God manages to be both transcendent and imminent all that the same time. But I do know that I am invited to receive his grace and live in his righteousness. There is a piece of the gospel here that will always be something of a mystery. But I do not have to understand the mystery in order to partake and participate in it.

It is still a mystery to me what a Blue Moon ice cream cone tastes like. I just know I love it, and that’s enough for me to keep coming back again and again. It is still a mystery to me that Jesus is somehow 100% fully God and at the same time 100% fully human. I just know that he loves us so much that he gave himself for us, and that’s enough.