Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, July 27, 2025
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: In a time of uncertainty and fear, God contains all things from all time, Alpha to Omega.
Revelation was written to early Christians at a time of fear and uncertainty. Israel was occupied by Rome and the early Christian church was persecuted for their religious beliefs and social/political views.
These first verses of Revelation make clear its readers were being called to a greater mission than inaction. Jesus had called his followers “to be a kingdom, priests serving” the people of a chaotic and dangerous world. How can people be emboldened to act within this scary and dangerous climate?
The people had never been called to serve in a vacuum nor unsupported by the God who called them. Theirs was, among a plethora of religious ideologies, the God that encompassed and contained all things for all time. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” said God. The Alpha and the Omega representing the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet, contains all other letters, the letters which make up the words, which make up the language, which makes up the primary form of communication, which is the primary way all humans are connected. God encompasses all the things that connect people to each other and to God.
We live in an uncertain time now, too. Whether we were ever living in a time of stability is a discussion for another time. Much of what divides us socially, politically, and religiously is a lack of understanding. “We” don’t understand “them,” and “they” don’t understand “us.” Rather than dig deep to uncover the places where we have common ground, most of us have chosen to dig in our heels a little bit deeper, refusing to lean into the places where we may agree.
God comes to us in the midst of this turmoil, proclaiming God’s place as the very foundation of the language that is necessary for us to even begin to let our walls down, seek, and find understanding. God is Alpha and Omega. God is the very container in which we all are contained. And being encompassed by a loving, nurturing, and understanding God is perhaps the very thing that unites us, the common ground on which we can begin to move toward those we consider enemies of thought and ideology. If God is what surrounds us all, if God is the origin of all that unites us, then perhaps we can find ourselves and each other in the security of God. Maybe we can find common ground by using our words to unite rather than to divide. Maybe our understanding can seek safety rather than danger. Maybe God will be the glue that holds our communities together, the container that helps us seek to shed our separateness to find instead our togetherness.
