Alpha and Omega
The first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. Used together, they symbolize that Christians believe Jesus is the beginning and end of all things.

I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 1:8

I never heard my father “take the Lord’s name in vain.”  But one of his favorite exclamations for expressing astonishment or surprise was, “Well, Great I Am!” As a little boy I wondered what a “Great I Am” was. When I grew in my knowledge of scripture, I discovered that to the Hebrews this was a name of God.

According to Exodus 3:14, Moses, while in the Sinai desert tending sheep, encountered a burning bush. A voice spoke from it. When Moses asked for identification, the voice said, “I am,” “I am who I am,” “I will be what I will be,” depending on the translation. In other words, “I just exist,” “I had no beginning or ending,” “I was not created and cannot be destroyed.”

Join this with Revelation 1:8, the “Lord God Almighty” proclaims himself to be the “Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come.”To both Jews and Greeks, the first and last letters of their alphabets signified totality, the whole of anything. In Greek these letters were Alpha and Omega. Jesus, God incarnate among us, is the beginning and the end of all things to us.

This is our way of trying to understand the eternity of God and the human way of counting time. This is the Great I Am. Look around our church. Do you see the Greek letters Alpha and Omega?      

Weldon Cannon