“John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before the 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 new realm, priests serving God, to him be glory and dominion forever 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 . So it is to be. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega," says God, “the beginning and the end.”
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There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings stories, just near the end. Two hobbits, Frodo and Sam, have carried the One Ring of great evil all the way to Mount Doom, to the fire where it was created, and they have thrown it back into the fires where it is destroyed. They just get out before the mountain erupts - and we see them marooned on a huge rock - the pyroclastic lava flow all around them, the mountain blowing rocks and flames. They weep together about what might have been; Sam remembers Rosie Cotton, and says with tears in his eyes “If there were ever someone I would marry, it would have been her.” Frodo says to Sam “I’m glad you’re here with me, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.”
But of course, it turns out not to be the end of all things, but the beginning. There is no question that both of them have been deeply and permanently scarred by their long journey into the fires of evil, and their struggles with temptation to choose the easier way. Neither one will ever be the same again. In some senses, that moment in the movie signifies the death of both Sam and Frodo - the death of who they were.
Yet they are resurrected - carried off the rock by great eagles, returned to the home of the woodland elves, and their lives are restored. - and I don’t think it’s any accident that the author, JRR Tolkien, used the eagles in this precise place in the story.
In fact, the eagle is imbued with great spiritual meaning in many different faiths. It represents spiritual protection, carries prayers, brings strength, courage, wisdom, illumination of spirit, healing, creation, and a knowledge of magic. The eagle has an ability to see hidden spiritual truths, rising above the material to see the spiritual. It represents great power and balance, dignity with grace, a connection with higher truths, intuition and a creative spirit grace achieved through knowledge and hard work.
The dictionary of scripture and myth, describes the eagle as “A symbol of the holy spirit, which flies through the mind (the air), from the higher nature (from heaven) to the lower nature (earth), and soars aloft to the self (the sun). The eagle is symbolic of new beginnings. Have you ever noticed in many churches, the Bible is placed on a pedestal which is an eagle with wings outstretched.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we read that Magi came to King Herod looking for a new king who was to be born. Now, Herod was a lot of things, but one thing he was not was stupid. He recognised immediately that the coming of a new king could well mean the ending of his rule. Yet Herod had in many ways been a good ruler. He was the only ruler of Palestine who ever succeeded in keeping the peace and bringing order to the region for any length of time. He built the Temple in Jerusalem. He was both absolute tyrant and unusually generous. He paid the Roman taxes for his people in times of difficulty and even melted down his own gold plate to buy grain to feed the starving people in the famine twenty-five years before Jesus was born. Yet he was also insanely suspicious of anyone who might be a threat to his reign. He murdered his wife and her mother and assassinated three of his sons. He was not willing to consider the ending of his own rule. So he sends his troops to end the lives of any who might be a potential threat.
You might remember awhile back some publicity around Wal-Mart stores, and Shopper’s Drug Mart, playing Christmas music early in November. Customers were not happy. I feel the same way. Rev. David Shearman reports that in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canadian Tire had Christmas lights out in September. He says “I thought that was a bit of a record. They hadn't quite taken down their garden centre and there were the Christmas lights!”
This past week Pope Benedict published his last commentary on the life of Jesus, called "Jesus in Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives". Pope Benedict's work raises a few eyebrows, because he disconnects the birth of Jesus from the date of Christmas. Now, for those of us who have been through a seminary or a Sunday School in the more liberal theological tradition, this won’t come as any surprise. The selection of the December date had nothing to do with historical or literal accuracy, but because early missionaries wanted to reach out to Druids who celebrated the winter solstice, the longest and darkest night of the year - and what better way to do that than to offer a festival of hope and light right after the longest, darkest night?
Pope Benedict suggests that the date of Jesus birth was not based in any kind of fact but be a series of calculating errors by a 5th century monk called Dennis the Small. It is likely that Jesus was born sometime between 7 BC and 2 BC and we really don't know when. What's more, it's likely that Jesus was born in the summer and not the winter and they the idea of oxen and donkey and sheep in the stable where he was born is unlikely.
Well, how did I get from Sam and Frodo through to this? Sam and Frodo believe that time, all time, has come to an end. ...and then the eagles arrive. The psalms talk about eagle’s wings, don’t they? “I will raise you up, on eagles wings; bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun.” To rise, on wings of eagles.
The point of the other stories is to show how our sense of time is so limited - and that’s why the Book of Revelation is important.
John was writing a hundred years after the death of Jesus, in a political time where being a
Christian was not only risky but downright dangerous. Christians were being persecuted and killed by the state for their beliefs. It was much easier to just turn away from Jesus, and faith. At least you would be alive.
So John writes letters to the seven churches in Asia: Grace to you and peace from the One
who is and who was and who is to come. Then he says “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 God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
This is important language because it is the language of time. God was, God is and God is to come. God is the beginning and ending of all things. I wonder, if in all this, we need to hold up these words and remember God’s time, and this assurance that God is always with us. What we may perceive as the end of all things may not be; new beginnings are really part of a much larger circle, the circle of God’s time, that has no beginning and no end, that goes on forever.
Sources:
1. “Alpha and the Omega” a sermon based upon Revelation 1: 4-8, John 18:33-37. Author anonymous.
2. “Endings and Beginnings” a sermon based upon Revelation 1:4-8. Rev. David Shearman, Central-Westside United Church, Owen Sound, Ontario.
3. Tolkien, J.R. R. Lord of the Rings Trilogy: The Return of the King. Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, Boston MA.
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