The Alpha and the Omega

Biblical Text: Revelation 7:2-17

In the Church Year the Day was All Saints (Observed). What is a saint is a little bit different from one tradition to the next. The Roman Catholic tradition a saint is only someone that the Papacy has recognized as “experiencing the beatific vision” (i.e. we know they are with God and not in Purgatory or Hell because reasons.) So All Saints becomes a catch-all feast of the recognized saints whose own day has not been celebrated. No other tradition has a formal recognition process. The Orthodox, Saints are first the martyrs, and then those recognized by public acclimation and what used to be called “the cult of the saints.” Protestants, including Lutherans here, use the term closer to how it is used in the bible meaning all the faithful. One of Luther’s slogans is simul justus et peccator, at the same time saint and sinner. That really describes us – the Church in Warfare. Or following the text of the day, the church in the midst of the great tribulation. The church at rest no longer has that problem with sin. What All Saints becomes in the Lutheran tradition is a celebration or remembrance first of those who have recently died in the faith but also of the great cloud of witnesses in general.

This sermon and the text from Revelation is a look at that great cloud from two directions: the beginning and the end – the alpha and the omega. John’s vision is a vision of All Israel, all believers in all times and all places. The first part is the sealing by God of his own before time. The last part is the outcome of that sealing at the end of the age. The time in between is the tribulation, the time under the cross. What Revelation does so well is comfort. Yes, we are in the tribulation. But you have been sealed by God in the blood of Christ, and he will bring you through it.

Future Opportunity

Biblical Text: Genesis 1:1-5

This sermon is a bit more philosophical that I typically get. It is also leaning of a work of systematic or dogmatic theology I’ve been reading by the Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson. Classic theology is build around what in Latin are loci. In English it is much less impressive, merely subjects of focus. And the classic first loci is God.

There is a blatant problem with that. Absent revelation we can know nothing about God. Most everybody would disagree with that. That is the inspiration for every rational and forced mystic quest for God. It is the thinking behind “seeking”. And all those quests seem to have the same goal, to get under or behind or beneath our existence to the eternal timeless reality. But the God of revelation is not timeless; He is the creator of time.

This sermon invites us not to be driven by fear into seeking some unchanging reality, but to hear Jesus is risen as the invitation to a way through time, through God’s good creation from alpha to omega.

The Light on Groundhog Day

Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

February 2nd, commonly known as groundhog day, in the church is Candlemas or The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Jesus. Candlemas is actually a lot older than the groundhog, but it doesn’t have a cute animal mascot. In pre-electric times it had a great ceremony, but candles just aren’t as important as they used to be. Anyway, the point of the day is seeing the light. Regardless of what extreme we are coming from – male or female, jew or gentile – the light of our salvation has come. This sermon invites us to ponder the reality of Jesus, redeemed by Mary and Joseph as true man, but also true God, and how that redeems us.