February 2021
February
2021
“I am
the Alpha and the Omega”
Revelation
22.13 (NRSV)
Revelation
belongs to the body of apocalyptic literature: it is poetic and visionary,
expressing its meaning through symbols and imagery. A book of visions, it bear
comparison with Isaiah’s picture of God as the eternal being and it is there
that we find the clues to the meaning of the various symbols and imagery (Isaiah
44.6, Isaiah 41.4)
Jesus existed before time, before the creation of the universe
(John 1.1). As the first cause of all that exists (vv2-3), Jesus cannot be
limited by the word Alpha; as the Omega, he is not the ‘end’ as we know it but
will continue to exist into the everlasting, never-ending future. We turn to
the Christ of 2000 years ago to begin our search for the eternal reality of
God: and it is through knowing Him now that we arrive at knowledge of God, in
whom ultimate meaning and purpose is to be found.
In our contemplative time we listen to God, allowing Him to find
us, actively
surrendering our will to that of God: we follow Jesus’ advice in Matthew 16.
25, to find ourselves by losing ourselves. We seek to hear God speaking to us
in the quiet of our hearts, making space for Him by listening to His Word,
focusing on it to the exclusion of all else. Thomas Merton wrote ‘Solitude is
not something you must hope for in the future. Rather it is a deepening of the
present and unless you look for it in the present, you will never find it’. We
are trying to deepen that present.
And
as we do so, we discover yet another paradox: that it is by confining ourselves
to this present moment that we enter into the eternal. Without taking thought
for the moment before, or the one that is to come, we allow each moment to be
the cause of the next. Then we are ready
to grasp God, who is close beside us at each step and at each moment, in all
the various situations that arise along the way. In ‘The Sacrament of the
Present Moment’ it is described as ‘responding to every movement of grace like
a floating balloon’. We have to allow ourselves, in faith, to float in time; to float in a vision of eternity.
A
Watchword might be “I am the beginning and the end”