Title Alpha and Omega/Revelation 21:5-6
He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And he said to them, “Write down, for these words are faithful and true.” And he said to me, “It is done; I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.
Humans live in time. Today, the fact that we have passed the old year and welcomed the new year also means the reality that we are living in time. But what is 'time'? What do you mean by 'time'? How we think about time determines the kind of life we live. From ancient times to modern times, many philosophers have been contemplating the identity of time, but they seem to think in two directions.
The first is the so-called concept of looking at time as a reincarnation. In other words, time continues to spin in a circle. In the lyrics of a popular song in Korea, there is a line called "Life on a spinning watermill", which is a concept that sees time in a cyclical, reincarnated way. In the philosophy of looking at time in this way, there is the idea of reincarnation in Eastern philosophy, especially in Buddhism. Eastern thought, such as Buddhism and Taoism, sees time and existence as a single sphere, and that all things continue to revolve in the same way as if they were drawing a huge circle. Because everything rotates like a great circle, time also rotates like this, and therefore the entire universe exists while rotating in a certain amount of time.
There are Westerners who view time similarly to this oriental idea of reincarnation, and that is the Greeks. The Greeks thought that just as the celestial bodies in the universe revolve repeatedly along a certain path, so is time after all. {{A reincarnated view of time has a negative connotation of being bound by the yoke of time}}
Plato, famous among Greek philosophers, said that 'Time moves in a circle to imitate eternity'. Aristotle also saw that time is most divine when it is cyclical. The reason the Greeks viewed time in this way as a cyclical, revolving circle stems from their efforts to connect time with eternity.
However, this reincarnation view of time has two fundamental problems. One of them implies that human life is bound by certain chains that we want to unravel in the reincarnated view of time. In other words, it has a very negative connotation. Also, although the Greek concept of time sees time as cyclical in order to connect it with eternity, based on the basic concept of Greek philosophy, Dualism, living in time has a strong meaning of living in bondage. This idea is also true in Buddhism. In Buddhism, to live in this cycle of reincarnation means that humans live in the bondage of karma, and to get out of this cycle is liberation, that is, salvation.
Greek and Buddhist thought believed that human salvation could only be achieved through time. In other words, freeing yourself from the bondage of time will set you free and you will be saved. Another fatal weakness when looking at time in this way is that if you have a reincarnation time view, there is no progress in human history and there is no progressive image. In cyclic time, there is no beginning, middle, or end; every point is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Therefore, there is nothing new, there is no will to pursue new things, and there is a passive sense of history that all you have to do is adapt to what exists.
And in the reincarnation time view, the old year or the new year is meaningless. Since everything repeats endlessly, there is no need for a new resolution, and you can always accept and accept what you are and live as it is. So there is no need for reflection or new progress.
To understand time, there is a concept of looking at time as a straight line, as opposed to seeing it as cyclical and reincarnated. Time moves creatively from the distant past to the distant future. This linear concept of time is that time does not rotate in a circle, but goes in a straight line. {{The concept of looking at time as a straight line has different meanings of life that it disappears and decays}}
Time advances toward the future as it develops and creates new things, but when it passes through the present and becomes the past, the time disappears and collapses from that moment on. In other words, like the fuse of an explosive, a fire is constantly burning on the fuse, but the place where the fire is ignited and passed by does not exist.
Although the concept of linear time has a more progressive, progressive, and creative sense than the concept of reincarnation, the problem is that the time that has passed is collapsing, annihilating, and disappearing.
We have seen two representative notions of time. I think that any concept of time has two problems.
The first is that beings living in time are unstable and imperfect. The reincarnated view of time has an oppressive image that humans are bound by the yoke of time, and even in a linear view of time, there is a deep negative image of humans collapsing, disappearing, and dispersed.
The second problem is that there is a strong desire to somehow connect with eternity, either a reincarnation time view or a linear time view, but it is not coming true.
However, there is a perspective of time that is hopeful and courageous for us to overcome both these unfortunate problems. It is God's view of time. God's view of time is Alpha and Omega, as the Bible says today. That is, first and last. This verse says that God is the Lord of the beginning and the Lord of the end.
In God's view of time, both the beginning and the end exist as the present. Like the reincarnation, there is no beginning and no end, but a definite beginning and an end. However, like a linear view of time, the past does not disappear, but exists as the present. Just because God's time has a beginning and an end does not mean that nothing exists before the beginning and nothing after the end.
The basic concept of God's view of time, the beginning and the end, that is, alpha and omega, can be compared to a tightrope walking. Before getting on the rope, there is a space where you can fully balance and be comfortable, and once you get on the rope, it is very dangerous and you have an unstable time that you cannot balance. You will come to a state of peace where you will never have to strike your balance again.
Just before today's text, in 21:1-4, the story of the new heaven and new earth is revealed. There are no tears, no death, no weeping, no mourning, it is said that the former is the past. The passing of the former does not mean that the past has passed away and has ceased to exist, but rather that an anxious and unbalanced life, like time on a rope, is over, and we are now entering a life free of such imbalance. Therefore, there may be small human imbalances in the time of our lives, but because we are walking on God's time, when we ride that line faithfully without breaking the line, it will eventually lead to eternity, a state of complete peace where we no longer need to balance. It's true.
Today the Lord said Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. We must be present in God's time. In that case, our time is not a reincarnated being in which our time goes through the cycle of eternal suffering, nor is our past annihilated, but we become beings who can live the given time with God, the Lord of time. Even if we live in time, it actually has the meaning of moving our life from eternity to eternity. Here, we have no reason to be anxious or regretful. If we live only in God's time without leaving that time, we are connected to eternity.
Today we have the hope of approaching eternity a little more in that time. Therefore, I wish you all blessings in our lives as we move from eternity to eternity. Amen.