The First and the Last
Alpha and Omega
Hold a book in your hands and look at the two covers. The front opens on page one, the first letter of the first word, and somewhere far on the other side is the last page, the last letter, the final mark before the binding closes again. Everything that happens in the story, every turn and crisis and quiet stretch, lives in between those two covers, held inside the binding. The risen Christ says of Himself exactly that. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first letter of the alphabet and the last, the Beginning and the End. He was there before your story opened, before the upheaval, before you drew a breath, the first word already spoken. And He waits at the far end of it, beyond the last page your eyes can see, the final word already His. That is the quiet, enormous comfort of it. Because He is both covers of the book, everything written between them is held within His binding, every shaken chapter, every page you would have torn out and burned if you could have, every passage you cannot yet read the meaning of. Not one page of your life falls outside the One who is its first word and its last.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
— The risen Christ — Revelation 22:13 (WEB)
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
What Cannot Be Shaken means Christ brackets the whole story. He is the First and the Last, present before the upheaval and waiting beyond it, both covers of the book. The turbulent middle you are living is not adrift; it is held within His binding, fastened on either side to a Beginning and an End that cannot come loose. He who opened the book will close it, and He holds every page between.
Your life did not start with you, and it will not end where your sight runs out. Christ is the first letter of your story and the last, present before the upheaval ever began and waiting beyond its end, holding a final page you have not been able to read. That alone is steadying news, because the middle is where you live, and the middle is where everything shook. Christ names Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. He was present before the upheaval ever started, holding the first page.
He is already present beyond its end, holding the last, a chapter you have not been able to read yet but He has already written. That is what steadies the frightening middle where you live. Because He is both covers of the book, every page between them is bound inside Him, even the chapter that nearly tore you apart, even the one you would have ripped out and burned. It is not floating loose beyond His reach. You do not have to decode the hard pages to be safe. The chapter that broke you is not loose, not flung out of the story, not floating beyond His reach. It is held within His binding, fastened on both sides to a Beginning and an End that are secure.
You only have to know who holds the covers. The One who wrote the first word of you will write the last, and He is keeping every shaken page in between.
The Church can lose the whole sweep of the story, fixated on the anxious middle as though it were the entire book, reading every present crisis as the end of the faith. Christ names Himself the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is and was and is to come. When the Body across history remembers that He brackets all of time, it holds the present chapter, turbulent as it is, inside a story whose beginning and ending are secure in Him. The shaking of Western and global Christianity in this age is real, but it is not loose; the Almighty who opened the book will close it, and every page between is held within His binding.
What cannot be shaken is the binding. The covers are fastened, the first word spoken, the last word already His, and the chapter that broke you is bound inside, not blowing away. You will not always be able to read the meaning of a page while you are living it. You do not have to. The One who is the Beginning and the End is holding the whole book together, and your story is safely inside.
- When I obsess over the hard middle of my story, have I forgotten Who holds both covers of the book?
- Which torn page of my life do I most need to trust is bound inside Christ rather than blowing away from Him?
- What would change today if I lived as someone whose first word and last word are both held by Him?
Lord, I have been living in the middle of the book, where everything shook, and I forgot You hold both covers. You are the First and the Last, the first word of my story and the last, present before the upheaval and waiting beyond it. Thank You that the chapter that broke me is not loose but bound inside You. I cannot read the meaning of every page yet, so let me trust the One who holds the binding. Write my last word as surely as You wrote my first. Amen.