“ ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Take some time to read that passage again--slowly--maybe aloud. Let the reality of the statement soak into your heart. Let any questions rise up into your consciousness.

“Alpha” is the first letter of the Greek alphabet; “Omega” is the last. We might see them as bookends of all time, from the very beginning, through all eternity. Scripture tells us over and over that, before we were being knit together in our mother's womb, (Ps.139:13, for example) God knew us, knows us. We don't know how that can be; we don't understand that Reality. It remains a mystery--not one to be solved, but one to be accepted in faith. We know that God, “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,” (BCP, p.323) is with us always--all ways. When we experience the reality of God's presence in our lives here and now, we seldom have words to describe or explain what has happened to us. It comes when we are ready to receive it, when we are open to change, to accept an ever-expanding view of the “Alpha and the Omega” and what that means in our lives.

As I reflect on “The Alpha and The Omega” today, I am inspired somehow by the symbol for Infinity (a figure 8 laying on its side), the unending All of it, enfolding and unfolding all of creation throughout the cosmos, beyond anything we can yet imagine. The Holy One always has more prepared for us as we trust in Divine Love to open the way before us.