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Across the Pastor’s Desk by Nancy Overgaard

As the 2024 election approaches, like many of you, I have felt a deep sense of concern for our nation and world. Over the past summer, I felt a deep emotion I could not identify. I finally realized it was grief over a sense that life as we have known it may be passing. A Jewish man expressed a similar sentiment recently in the news, a sense that the security and wellbeing Jewish people in America have enjoyed throughout his generation may be passing for his children.

As I was working through those thoughts and feelings, I happened to turn to Revelation 1:8 for a Bible Study I was preparing: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’” A deep sense of peace settled over me as I read that timeless reminder that God is in control, no matter how out of control the world may seem.

The Zondervan Study Bible (2008) explains simply that “alpha” and “omega” are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. They indicate, as the rest of the verse indicates, that “God is the beginning and the end.”

That is to say, “He sovereignly rules over all human history.” We can be confident that God, who was there at the beginning, is present now, and will be to the end.

For further insight, I went to my bookshelf and reached for a 1,200-page commentary on The Book of Revelation. The author was my seminary adviser, one of my favorite instructors. His explanation did not disappoint. “Alpha and omega,” he wrote, “is a figure of speech called a merism (a merism states polar opposites in order to highlight everything between the opposites).” — G.K. Beale, 1999.

Similar phrases, as the “beginning and end” — Rev. 21:6; 22:13, “first and last” — Rev. 22:13, are also merisms.

“These merisms,” Beale wrote, “express God’s control of all history, especially by bringing it to an end in salvation and judgment.”

Revelation 1:8 also reminds us God is almighty, all-powerful.

As the Prophet Jeremiah declared, during a terrible time in the history of his own nation, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” — Jeremiah 32:17

God reassured Jeremiah by responding with a similar declaration: “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” — Jeremiah 32:27.

In the verse before Revelation 1:8 we find another reassurance for our times, about the return of Jesus Christ.

Citing the Prophet Zechariah, the Apostle John wrote in Revelation 1:7, “Look, he [Jesus] is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him….”

Jesus taught, in advance, that a telltale sign that his return is near is that things would seem to be spinning out of control — weather, wars, unprecedented distress.

Just as birth pains indicate birth is near, Jesus taught that distressing times will indicate his return is near. (See Matthew 24).

We may find all of that hard to understand, but if we will take Jesus at his word, and God at his word, we will find comfort.

If merisms and explanations seem too complicated, we can find the same comforting message summed up in the words of a familiar African American spiritual: “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”

If you are troubled by all that is troubling our nation and world, take some time to think about the deep biblical truths summed up in those simple words.

“May grace and peace be yours from him who is, and who was, and who is to come…and from Jesus Christ…” — Revelation 1:4

Nancy Overgaard is a member of the Freeborn County Ministerial Association.