Hebrews 3:1,2

ALPHA AND OMEGA

‘Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who was faithful to Him that appointed Him.’

Hebrews 3:1

Christ Himself shall be the Alpha and Omega of our message. Upon Him we fix our gaze.

I. The influence of Jesus Christ has ever been a personal one.—The Church is His Body. He is its Head. Contact with Him is the guarantee of its vitality. All down the ages, ‘What think ye of Christ?’ has been made the main test of orthodoxy. Deep into the mind of Christendom has been wrought the conviction that to reject the transcendent claims of the Son of Man is to leave in the system He founded nothing worth contending for.

II. It is in virtue of this Divine Personality in which it is centred that our creed becomes a power, a life. It is this, too, which raises our personal assent to that creed above the level of mere opinion. Christianity empowers while it enlightens; and it can do this because its Lord is ‘the power of God’ as well as ‘the wisdom of God.’

III. How sacred becomes the whole of life in the thought of its consecration to the service of our High Priest.

IV. If we are to be men of power, we must make much of Christ: consider we Him our Apostle and High Priest; confess we Him; place we His Name above every other name. Ask we to-day for a strengthened realisation of the inexhaustible reserve of grace hidden in Him for our personal and ministerial needs.

V. A closing reflection is drawn from the kind of evidence St. Thomas demanded before accepting the truth of His risen Lord’s identity: ‘Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails.’ Kindred evidence the world’s doubters have a right to demand. The visible stigmata in hands and feet of our crucifixion to the world, to self, and to sin. This is a reasonable demand, and alas for the Christian life when this demand is in no sense met. ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice; but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ Is it ever so with us? If so, God forgive us.

Bishop Alfred Pearson.