God’s Beloved

The End and the Beginning

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Revelation 22:13

God begins at the beginning. His Word literally begins with the words,”In the beginning…” (Genesis 1:1). The Hebrew word used here for beginning is re’shiyth, which means “first”, or “beginning”

John’s gospel begins with the same words as Genesis: “In the beginning…” The Greek word he used for beginning is arche, which means, “beginning, origin, that by which anything begins to be, the person or thing that commences.”

Genesis opens by recounting what God did in the beginning, John opens by recounting Who was there at the time. God created, God was there, the Word was with God, the Word was God. God is all over re’shiyth and arche. He is the very concept of Beginning.

The same John who wrote about the beginning was given the revelation, the preview of what will take place at the end. He was shown what will happen when the product of God’s Genesis creation is done away with and replaced with something else entirely. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” (Revelation 21:1)

Genesis is about the beginning, Revelation is about the ending followed by the beginning. Three times during John’s revelation, God declares Himself to be not just the Beginning, but the Beginning and the End. He uses the Greek alphabet to make His point: “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 1:8, 21:6, 22:13). Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, omega is the last. A and Z. He’s not just all over beginnings, He’s all over endings as well.

Have you ever gone through a season of life that seemed to be mostly about endings? In the span of five years, we lost all four of our parents and experienced the accident that ended my days as a teacher. Here’s what I learned then, and have been given a refresher course on several times since: God is as much in endings as He is in beginnings. As you experience the loss of whomever or whatever has been woven into your life, God is fully present. Some of these endings blindside you, some of them you can see coming down the road and either dread or just try to brace for the impact of. Some are mild, some are traumatic. Ask any mom and she will tell you what degree of pain she felt at each of her child’s milestones: outgrowing the crib, losing the first tooth, getting on a school bus, leaving for college. I remember the first Christmas that I no longer needed to look at toy ads for my children’s gifts. Sigh.

Here’s the thing about endings. Not only is God right there with you, permeating each ending you experience, He is also preparing something new in the aftermath: new inner strength after the loss of a loved one, a new direction after the loss of the comfortable one, new relationships to replace lost or shifted ones, a permanent tooth to replace that tiny baby one. He is the Alpha that follows the Omega. He knows that before He can present you with the new, the old must be removed. This is true of old ideas, old ways of reacting to circumstances, of relating with people, of relating to Him. The old must go before the new can come. If it is true of the current heaven and earth, why can’t it be true of everything under heaven and on earth? When you are in the midst of your omega, your ending, trust that your alpha has already been arranged by the One Who is both Omega and Alpha, the End and the Beginning.