Bookends

 

Bookends

 

Revelation 1:4-8

Jesus Christ, firstborn of the dead 

 

1:4 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,

 

1:5 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

 

1:6 and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

 

1:7 Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. So it is to be. Amen.

 

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

 

 

From beginning to end…which living thing has the shortest life? Probably the Mayfly, which has an adult-stage life of less than 24 hours. Talk about your crowded day! How about among the elements? From what I found out on the infamous Internet, it appears to be Hydrogen-7, a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen. It’s half-life—the way we measure the “life” of elements—must be measured in “yottoseconds,” which is a second, times 10 to the minus 24^th power. How about you? How long will you be around? 

 

Any mention of “lifespan” typically conjures up all kinds thoughts about our mortality. I’ll bet even my question, “How long will YOU be around?” started the wheels a spinning! I confess that I am one of the lucky ones who has not ever lived on the edge of either hardship or depression that might have given me even a yottosecond’s thought about the “end of life” as something worth welcoming. For me, life is almost always a joy, but has, at its worst, only succumbed to being “manageable.” [I don’t want to go too far with this, as my time in ministry has taught me that not all persons have such a “happy” story, and I never, EVER want to give the impression that I believe that my journey is either “typical” or even an expected outcome of navigating what can be the complications of life. I also recognize that some personalities experience circumstances very differently than my type, AND neither have I ever had to deal with what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. As the disclaimer in so many TV ads says, “Your experience may differ.”]

 

Still, thoughts about MY mortality can stop me in my tracks. I have also been blessed beyond any human measure by a loving partner in life who still charges my batteries, and maybe even more than when I first decided she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I think about our wonderful and stimulating life together and when “lifespan” comes up, I wonder who will be the last one standing. We both joke about why WE would prefer to “go first,” and frankly, if we could plan our own exit, I think we would walk out the door hand in hand. But, of course, this kind of organization is WAY beyond our paygrade. My wife, Dara, is a far better organizer than I am, and I’m guessing my natural randomness and ill-timed episodes of being an irritant provokes her to at least think about sending me on ahead. Seriously, though, I love this life, I love her, my family, and all of the things that we do together—and separately—that add so much of the proverbial “spice to life.” (Now that I’m doing most of the cooking, I’ve come to truly understand this metaphor.) I’m really in no hurry for it to end, and harbor no extra excitement about “meeting my maker” earlier than later. Life is good, and even in what have been fleeting moments for me when it was not, I always believe something better is just over the “next hill.” And it has been. 

 

Again, I realize that not all of the readers (or hearers) of this sermon have shared my very upbeat experience in life, but since you are still here, you certainly must share a few anxious thoughts about your own mortality? None of us DOES know what our lifespan may be, unlike Hydrogen-7. I do recall, however, that my late brother-in-law, Win, who died at 61 of a glioblastoma multi-form tumor, had an interesting observation. Win was always trying to mine some positive aspect out of his terminal diagnosis (he was given 12 to 18 months to live, and he got 12), and one of the things he said was, “Unlike most of the rest of the world, I DO know about how long I will live, and can plan accordingly.” I never ceased to be amazed at Win’s power of thought and of the mind; his attitudes about many things were so formed and tempered by both his intellect (which was prodigious) and his faith (which was ever growing). We can all learn from how he made his final 12 months count. If you are struggling with making meaning out of life, what I want to say to you is that you have a wonderful set of “bookends” to keep things straight for you.

 

As a keeper of books through much of my life, I know how important bookends in one’s library are. Without bookends, books fall over, unless you jam so many of them onto a shelf that they hold each other up by their forced proximity. I don’t recommend this kind of order keeping, either for books or people. For books, bookends give you much flexibility, especially when you categorize your books into subjects like I have tended to do. And while the various communities with which we affiliate ourselves with may help keep US “upright,” just being jammed together with other people who may be having a better go of it than we are is not the best method of attaining one’s balance in life. Bookends help bring order to a library, but when it comes to life, this text reminds us that JESUS is our “bookends”—the “alpha and omega.”

 

Actual bookends fascinate me. Some are designed to BE bookends, so their creators played around with that image. I’ve seen some that had the head of a creature on one bookend and its tail-end on the other, things like dachshunds or “bookworms.” A couple sets I’ve had looked like old drawers with wrought-iron drawer pulls, while others, like a couple I have in my current church study, are carved from marble and resemble chess pieces. I’ve seen religious bookends and irreverent bookends, and often quite humorous ones that played on some theme of reading or knowledge. Of course, there are those common things we sometimes repurpose as bookends, like bricks or colorful stones we found while out hiking. And then there are the “techno” bookends people have come up with like coils of spring steel that you roll out and stand your books up on, then allowing them to retract and theoretically hold up the books? (They usually do not work for more than a very few books.) And let us not forget those little “institutional” book ends made of bent metal that slide under the last two or three books on each end of the shelf. These work great, but things can go quite awry when trying to extract a book that is actually sitting on the bookend. If you are a bookish person like most pastors, you know that managing books using ANY kind of bookends may temporarily cause you to “lose your religion,” as they say. A shelf that looks well managed and aesthetically pleasing when assembled may become like a drunken sailor when you extract a book or two from the collection! 

 

God knew that LIFE needed bookends, too. God also created us in such a way that we do NOT know the length of our days on this planet. Good bookends “work” regardless of how many books they are keeping upright. God’s “bookends” are actually quite perfect, as they are supplied by the Son of God himself, Jesus Christ. When Jesus says “I am the alpha and the omega,” he is telling us that he IS before we came to be and WILL BE after we are gone. Or, put better, he was there when we arrived on this planet, and will be there to “catch us” when it is our time to “shuffle off this mortal coil,” as the Bard put it. And in between, Jesus offers to keep us upright, balanced, and ready for service, just like a well-organized library! Good bookends are able to keep any kind of books stable on the shelf, regardless of how new or old they are, or if their covers and pages are tattered and torn or colorful and crisp. Jesus is the same way with people. 

 

Upbeat, giddy optimists like me still need Jesus to keep me from falling down and frittering away my valuable time, accomplishing too little with my gifts. Those who struggle or suffer need Jesus to help them find their balance and bring meaning to a life wherein they may feel more taxed than blessed. Regardless of the condition of the “books,” Christ will be at our beginning AND at our end, and will hold everything up in the middle, the more we learn to trust him and rely upon his Spirit and guidance. Every time I think about this “alpha and omega” promise of our Lord, I think of a modern hymn that brings me to tears EVERY single time we sing it. It’s called “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry” by John Ylvisaker [Yul-va-sakker] and it reminds us, thusly:

 

I was there to hear your borning cry, 
I'll be there when you are old. 
I rejoiced the day you were baptized, 
To see your life unfold. 
I was there when you were but a child, 
With a faith to suit you well; 
In a blaze of light you wandered off 
To find where demons dwell. 

 

When you heard the wonder of the Word 
I was there to cheer you on; 
You were raised to praise the living God, 
To whom you now belong. If you find someone to share your time 
And you join your hearts as one, 
I'll be there to make your verses rhyme 
From dusk 'till rising sun. 

 

In the middle ages of your life, 
Not too old, no longer young, 
I'll be there to guide you through the night, 
Complete what I've begun. 
When the evening gently closes in, 
And you shut your weary eyes, 
I'll be there as I have always been 
With just one more surprise.

 

I was there to hear your borning cry, 
I'll be there when you are old. 
I rejoiced the day you were baptized, 
To see your life unfold.

 

I confess that when my two children were young and still at home, my love for them caused me to put myself in the place of “God” in this hymn, and the tears flowed, as I imagined them going through THEIR life’s journeys, wanting only the best for them. Now the tears flow as I think about how my wife and I have felt this kind of loving guidance from God together, and how the hymn so perfectly captures the “alpha and omega” promise of Jesus, to be the “bookends” of our days. And it is only because of the love of God the Father through Christ the Son that that moving final verse says, “When the evening gently closes in, and you shut your weary eyes, I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise…” By being the “firstborn of the dead,” the writer of the Revelation is clueing us in on just what that “surprise” is! Life is wonderful, and then it gets better! That second “bookend” is nothing but a door onto the next “shelf!” Compared to the eternity Christ has opened to humanity, the joys and trials of this life are but a yottosecond! Amen!