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The Alpha and the Omega

Sermon by Andrew GreenwoodProvidence-Fort Washington United Methodist Church

Genesis 1:1-27; Revelation 1:4b-8

Christ the King Sunday – November 22, 2009“The Alpha and the Omega.” According to today’s scripture fromRevelation, God is “the Alpha and the Omega.” Now, I was never in afraternity, and I haven’t studied Greek in any of my seminary courses, butI’ve learned over the years that “alpha” is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and “omega” is the last. So God is the first and the last, the beginning and the end. God is the one who created all things, and God will be there when all creation passes away.But “the Alpha and the Omega,” the beginning and the end, meansso much more than that. When the author of Revelation writes that God is“the Alpha and the Omega,” he is using a literary tool called “hendiadys.”Hendiadys is the joining together of two terms to express a single concept.God is not just the beginning and the end; God is the beginning, the end, andeverything in between. To put it simply, God is eternal.God was there at the beginning of creation, and God will be there atthe end. But God was also there to make a covenant with Abraham. God wasthere to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God was there in Jesus Christ, GodIncarnate; in his life, death, and resurrection. God was there when each andevery one of us was born. And God is here today. God is past, present, andfuture.My question today, on Christ the King Sunday, is, “What do weknow about the God of the past (the God who created the world, made thecovenant with Abraham, and came to earth as Jesus Christ), and what doesthat tell us about the God of the present and future?” To discover the God of the past, I believe it is appropriate to start at the beginning. In today’sscripture lesson from Genesis, we learn that God created all things out of aformless void. The first thing this shows is that God is a creator who makesorder out of chaos. God stepped into a black hole of emptiness, and saw fitto create a universe of order.The six days of creation show this order very clearly. There is a pattern in the six days, in which there are two sets of three days. Each of thefirst three days is paired up with one of the second three days. The first dayis paired up with the fourth, the second with the fifth, and the third with thesixth. On the first day, God creates light, and on the fourth day, God createsthe heavenly bodies to shine forth that light. On the second day, God createsthe sky to separate the earthly waters from the heavenly waters, and on the

fifth day, God creates fish to swim in the earthly waters and birds to fly inthe sky. On the third day, God gathers the seas together, to create land, andon the sixth day, God creates animals and people to live on the land.While the creation account teaches us that God creates order out of chaos, it also teaches us that God does not always accept the status quo. Godhad created a perfectly ordered pattern of six days. God could have left it atthat, and nobody would know the difference. But God chose to rest. Godchose to step back from the pattern that God had created, and admire theresults. Thus, the Sabbath was born.God did not intend for the Sabbath to become part of the status quo.In Isaiah 58, the people were treating the fast day as a time of mourning,instead of helping the poor. Isaiah made it clear that this is not the fast Godchooses. In Matthew 2, the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of working onthe Sabbath. Jesus responded by saying, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.” God does not do things because they are the status quo. Rather, God turns the status quo on its headfor the benefit of God’s children.The creation account also teaches us that God creates through God’sWord. I’m not talking about scripture, although that is a particular form of God’s Word. I’m saying that when God speaks, things happen. In today’sreading from Genesis, we heard two phrases over and over: “Then Godsaid” and “It was so.” God speaks, and it is so. This is a testament to God’samazing power.But God’s Word is more than just language. Some of us are familiar with John 1; some might not be. Let me share a few excerpts from thischapter. “In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and theWord was God.” God’s Word is eternal, and it is a fully divine aspect of God. Later in the chapter, John writes, “And the Word became flesh andlived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s onlyson, full of grace and truth.” Of course, when John writes that “the Word became flesh,” he’s referring to Jesus Christ. We have seen Christ’s glory,“the glory as of a father’s only son,” in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. But the book of Genesis tells us that Christ’s glory is also in creation.God created the universe through God’s Word, and we see that Word in a beautiful autumn day, a starlit night, and a newborn baby’s cry.Many, many books could be (and have been) written about thecreation account, and what it says about God. But I think we have discussedthree of the essential characteristics of the creator God. God is a God of order. God is not a God of the status quo. And, most importantly, Godcreates through God’s Word, which we believe became flesh in Jesus Christ,our king.We’ve come a long way since creation, even though it hasn’t always

been the right way. But what is the right way? Where are we supposed to begoing? According to today’s lesson from Revelation, Christ “made us to be akingdom, priests serving his God and Father.” Christ is our king, and God isour Father. So how does the creation account tell us serve Christ the Kingand God the Father?First, it tells us that God desires order. As United Methodists, wethink we know a little bit about order. When I talk to my mother, who is aCongregationalist, about administrative councils, charge conferences,district superintendents, and bishops, her eyes glaze over. If anydenomination has this order thing down, we do, right?Maybe. But just because we have the most bureaucracy of any kidon the block, doesn’t mean we have the kind of order that God likes. What ismore important than what kind of system we have is how we use thatsystem. A friend of mine is a member of a United Methodist Church thatwants to build a new church building. Well…some of the members want to build a new building. These members have enough power in thecongregation, and enough support from the district superintendent and pastor, that the congregation will build a new building.However, they seem to be going about it for all the wrong reasons.Those who support a new building believe that it will revive thecongregation and bring new members in. But there is nothing wrong withthe current facility, and it is in a perfect location to bring in new members.When this congregation builds their new building, it will not achieve theexpected results. While order is important to God, it cannot bring the changethat God wants to see in the world. Only a change of the heart can do that.This is when it is important to remember that God is not a God of the status quo. The status quo loves the illusion of change, but does notembrace change of the heart. My friend’s church believes that they can bringabout change of the heart by changing outward circumstances. But a new building does not change dry worship, and neither does new music or a new preacher. Without a change of the heart, any other change is meaningless.With a change of the heart, new doors are opened that we never knewexisted.I saw the effects of a change of the heart firsthand yesterday. Pastor Stephen, Alice, Shirley Gillespie, Shirley’s friend Edith and I participated inthe Help the Homeless Walkathon on the Mall yesterday morning. When Igot on the Metro in Tenleytown, it was fairly empty. By the time I switchedtrains at Metro Center, the train was crowded. When I got to theSmithsonian stop, where the walk started, the line to get out of the stationextended all the way to the train. I have never been so happy to be part of such a big crowd. This was a crowd of thousands of people that hadexperienced a change of the heart. These were people that had left their