The Neglected Parable
Here is the neglected parable—the Cinderella of the parables! A million sermons have been preached on the parable of the Ten Virgins, the Prodigal Son, and all the rest. But here is Christ’s crowning parable, a masterpiece of imagery that He left to the last, and only unfolded from the throne of His glory.
“I am Alpha and Omega,” He said repeatedly (Rev. 1:8, 11; 21:6; 22:13). And since Alpha is simply the first letter in the Greek alphabet, and Omega the last, it is as if He said, “I am the A and the Z. I am the Alphabet!” It is an arresting simile, and worthy of the closest scrutiny; yet strange to say, we seldom pay it the slightest attention. It is pleasant to reflect that He, who loved all common and familiar things, sparrows and ravens, lilies and wheat, took the commonplace letters that little children have to learn, and transmuted them into an exquisite symbol of His redemptive glory.
The alphabet rises to sudden splendor when the risen and ascended Saviour enlists it in His program of self-revelation. Long, long ago, a startled shepherd was commanded to address a nation and a throne in the Name of the Most High. He asked for the credentials by which he might sustain so august a commission. “Say,” he was bidden, “say that I AM hath sent thee!”
“I Am—!”
“I Am—who? I Am—what?”
For centuries that question stood unanswered, that sentence remained incomplete. It was a magnificent fragment. It stood like a monument that the sculptor had never lived to finish; like a poem that the composer, dying with all his music in him, had left with its closing stanzas unsung. But the Sculptor of that statue was not dead; the Singer of that song had not perished. For, behold, He liveth for evermore! And in the fullness of time, He reappeared and filled in the gap that had so long stood blank.
“I Am—!”
“I Am—what? I Am—who?”
“I am—the Bread of Life!”
“I am—the Light of the World!”
“I am—the Door!”
“I am—the True Vine!”
“I am—the Good Shepherd!”
“I am—the Way, the Truth and the Life!”
“I am—the Resurrection and the Life!”
And thus, verse by verse, He worked His way to the sublime climax of that closing stanza: “I am Alpha and Omega!” “I am—A and Z!” “I am—the Alphabet.” The art of symbolism can rise to no loftier altitude than that. What, I wonder, can such symbolism portray?
The Inexhaustible Christ
“I am the Alphabet!” I have sometimes stood in one of our great public libraries. I have surveyed with astonishment the serried ranks of English literature. I have looked up, tier above tier, gallery above gallery, shelf above shelf, the books climbed to the very roof, while looking before me and behind me, they stretched as far as I could see. And what do all these tons of tomes contain? They contain simply the 26 letters of the alphabet, arranged in kaleidoscopic variety. Each poet and novelist juggled with the letters, shuffled them, and marshalled them in an order that they had never before assumed; but each drew only upon those 26 letters for every line that he penned.
Have all these hundreds of thousands of writers, penning these millions upon millions of books, begun to exhaust the alphabet? Not a bit of it! The writers of tomorrow will find the alphabet as fresh, as unworn, and as ready to do their purpose as did the writers of yesterday and yesteryear.
“I am—the Alphabet!” The Saviour means that, in His redemptive fullness and splendor, He is absolutely incapable of exhaustion. The ages may draw upon His grace; the men of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues, a multitude that no man can number. A host that no statistician can count may kneel in contrition at His feet, availing themselves of His pity and pardon and peace, but they are drinking of a fountain that can never run dry. Like the alphabet, He is inexhaustible.
His love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end.
The Indispensability of Christ
Literature, with all its hoarded treasure, is as inaccessible as diamonds on the moon until I have mastered the alphabet. I may wander through the most gigantic and glorious libraries, with all the wealth of poetry and history and science and travel and philosophy and romance ranged in bewildering luxuriance around me; but unless I first become acquainted with Him, I can enjoy neither the choicest treasures of this life nor the radiant raptures of the life to come. I must know the Lord Jesus Christ, the Key to Life!
As the disciples discovered on the road to Emmaus, I cannot understand my Bible unless I take Him as the Key to it all. I cannot understand the processes of historical development until I have accorded Him the central place in the pageant of the ages. I cannot anticipate with equanimity the august unfoldings of the days to come until I have seen the keys of the eternities swinging at His girdle. At every point, Christ is life’s supreme indispensability.
The Invincibility of Christ
He is at the beginning, that is to say, and He goes right through to the very end. There is nothing in the alphabet before A; there is nothing after Z. However remote the period at which your interpretation of the universe places the beginning of things, you will find Him there. When things first began, it was because He began them. When the drama ends, it will be because He brings down the curtain. And all the way through, He is marshalling the pageant of the aeons. He is everlastingly in command. The story of the ages may be told in a sentence: “Christ first, Christ last, and nothing between but Christ.” Having begun, He completes. He goes right through!
The Adaptability of Christ
Nothing on the face of the earth is as adaptable as the alphabet. No two of us are alike, yet we can each express our individualities through the agency of the alphabet. In whatever mood I find myself, I can set pen to paper and express that mood exactly. The alphabet is the most fluid, the most accommodating, the most plastic device known to men. The lover takes these 26 letters and makes them the vehicle for the expression of his passion; the poet transforms them into a song that shall be sung for centuries; the judge turns them into a sentence that sends a shuddering wretch to a felon’s cell and a hangman’s rope. What could be more adaptable than this?
And just because of this remarkable quality in the alphabet, Jesus employs it as an emblem of Himself. He adapts Himself, with divine exactitude, to the individual needs of each of us. I do not need Him in the precise sense in which Paul needed Him, or Bunyan, or Wesley, or Spurgeon. But I need Him in a way of my own, and He can match that peculiar need of mine as the alphabet can lend itself to each separate man and mood. To each individual, the spiritual experiences of others sound unconvincing. Their case is not my case. I may not have sinned more than others, but I have sinned differently. “We have turned each one to his own way.”
The narratives of other pilgrims do not quite reflect my condition. But the beauty of it is that, like the alphabet, Christ adapts Himself with the most perfect precision to my own peculiar and desperate need. Until we have discovered the amazing facility with which Jesus can meet our distinctive yearnings and needs, we cannot possibly appreciate the power and value of the cross.
—F. W. Boreham
