This Sunday marks the final Sunday in the calendar of the church year. In our congregation, we take this opportunity to observe Eternity Sunday – a time to think of those in our community and in our personal lives who have died. It is a service of both grief and gratitude, remembrance and hope. In our Scripture text, found in Revelation 1, we are given an expansion vision of God – the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. We’ll reflect on what it means to be people who live in the tension of the past (what was), the present (what is), and the future (what is to come) and the hope that comes from worshiping a God who gathers up all these things, offering us hope and healing beyond our asking or imagination.

Scriptures:

• 2 Samuel 23:1-7
• Psalm 132:1-18
• John 18:33-37
• Revelation 1:1-8

Revelation 1:1-8

Introduction and Salutation
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.