Jesus the Alpha and the Omega in Apocalypse and Pandemic

By: Andi O. Santoso

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  
~ Revelation 22: 12-13 (NRSV)
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As I am writing this short paper, my heart and mind are still hanging out there looking at the global cases of Coronavirus: 3,632,354, with 251,367 total deaths and 1,184,019 recoveries. I am thinking about our current situation in Indonesia as well as in the US itself and other parts of the world. I have been following the news either in Whatsapp groups of pastors in my synod, my interfaith group (either local or national), and also family groups. Since the physical or social distancing order, each one of us has had to deal with many new vocabularies: #stayathome, #workingfromhome, #onlinechurch, #onlinecourse, #zoom, etc. Our lives  changed suddenly, our schedules got canceled, many businesses collapsed, people lost their jobs. There is something inside of me that keeps asking, “Are we doing fine?”, “Is everything ok?” But there are so many questions and uncertainties and I feel lost in several ways that words may not be able to describe. There is fear, worry, anxiety, despair, hopelessness, restlessness, confusion, mourning, and lament. How can we face tomorrow? Imagine if someone is affected by Coronavirus and they have  to stay in isolation for at least 14 days. What will they think or feel or do? What will we do when we are facing death and have to leave our families forever? Can we imagine what it is like for the families who have lost loved ones  but  cannot give them honor for the last time at their funeral? COVID-19 has hit many people emotionally, physically, spiritually, communally, and socially. Is there any assurance that we can hold unto? Is there any dream we can still achieve? What about courage, faith, hope, love? When will these calamities end? Where is peace? Where is justice? 

Why is there suffering? Why does evil exist? When will this hardship and trial finish? Where is God during this pandemic? Is this the end time? These questions are real; it is all right here. Victor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz, wrote in his phenomenal book Man’s Search for Meaning, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.” One of the things we can do  during this pandemic is to learn  from the Book of Revelation. Why? It is an apocalyptic writing. It is a story that was written during oppression, hardship, and calamity that words cannot describe and in which “our eyes” cannot see God’s hand at all. Drew Strait in his lecture Apocalypse and Pandemic quotes Catherine Keller and John J. Thatamanil, ​

Contemporaries keep using the term ‘apocalypse,' but… the term doesn’t mean what many think it means. Deriving from the Greek apokalypsis, the word means “unveiling” or ‘revelation.' Hence, the title given to the final book of the Christian Bible…[is] ‘'Revelation' not ‘Cataclysm.' Not 'The End'… When the term is understood as 'unveiling,' we can then ask the right questions: What does this pandemic unveil? What have we refused to see about ourselves and the precarious world we’ve built, a world that now stands exposed and tottering in the harsh light of this unasked-for revelation? If we permit this crisis to expose the fissures of our failing world, this pandemic will have served as properly 'apocalyptic.' If instead, despite its devastating toll, we return to an obsolete and unsustainable world, nothing meaningful will have been revealed... ​

What can we learn from the apocalyptic? Strait says, “The apocalyptic is crisis literature. It is a special genre that is commonly written during a domination, state terror, repression, gentile encroachment on Jewish worship, ideology of diadochoi, assimilations (luke warm), ‘superman dimension to the military basis of power’, political/ religious idolatry.” From NT Wright and Bird, I learned that the Book of Revelation’s genre was an apocalypse and the revelation itself is eclectic, full of prophecies and imageries, and thus not easy to interpret.  John, the writer of the book, is trying his best to explain the “unveiling”: the intersection between the reality of God and his glory, the divine strategy, and God’s plan for the world in the midst of its mess, full of oppression and so-called tyrannical power which is not everlasting. John is trying to explain “how the divine purpose is working itself out to bring about a marriage between heaven and earth, and how at the center of it all is Jesus himself, the “Lamb” who was slain, the king who will return to conquer all his adversaries so that God will in the end dwell fully and finally with his people.” 

I have also learned from Brian K. Blount’s point of view. It is interesting how he understands apocalyptic theology: the truth is out there. Thus we can learn the context and the content of the biblical narratives in the Book of Revelation and find the meaning for our context today. He continues, explaining that the Ruler or the Powerful Evil during that time can be understood as the Roman Empire, when Caesar is lord. But how can we translate that context into the theological meaning that John is trying to explain, that the truth is there? As Blount concludes, “Despite what you see in this very out of control world, where the powers and forces of chaos and destruction seem to be victorious at every turn, God is in control. In John’s time this message translated but one way. The truth is: God is stronger than Rome. To any objective observer, however, the claim is a ludicrous one.” During this COVID-19 pandemic, some of the ways that I can express my faith in the midst of confusion, raise up my hope in the midst of despair, and express my love to the people whom I love who are near or far away include writing poetry, playing music, and doing a campaign through social media with this hashtag #togetherwecanmovethemountain. It comes from a poem that I wrote which teaches some of the lessons that I have learned during this pandemic:

Together, We Can Move The Mountain
Now, it is time to realize
It’s not about my ethnicity
It’s not about my skin color
It’s not about what my religion is
It’s not about my country
It’s not about my nationality
It’s not about my belonging
It’s not about my priority
It’s time to consider our vulnerability
It’s time to think globally
It’s time to work differently
It’s time to act in solidarity 
It’s time to walk in humility
Seeing this pandemic as an opportunity
To come back to our dignity
To fight back our humanity, together. 
@andiosville

What is my theological reflection during this crisis, then? Nelson Kraybill, in his book Apocalypse and Allegiance, says, “John championed the same hope for Christ’s return that animates the church today, but his vision does not predict specific political, cultural, or natural events of the twenty-first century. He received his vision in the first-century Mediterranean context and symbols in his work relate primarily to the realities of that era. But the world he inhabited—the Roman Empire—and the symbolic universe his vision included have uncanny parallels to our circumstances today.”  What are the implications of knowing that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End during this pandemic? I want to reflect on these several lessons that can be a foundational #FaithHopeLovePeace for my personal journey in responding to COVID-19:

1. It gives me faith and vision to walk in this life: in Jesus 
2. It gives me security and assurance in life: in Jesus
3. It gives me hope that every beginning has an end: in Jesus forever and ever
4. It gives me peace and comfort: in Jesus there is eternal peace
5. It gives me joy and perseverance: He is always walking with us until the end of time
6. It gives me an example as His disciple: Jesus started well and finished well ​

Do I believe that this is the end time? I believe that God’s  Kingdom is already come and is coming. I believe that instead of waiting for that moment to arrive, I am excited to join Jesus  to continue my journey here on earth as it is in heaven. I believe Jesus is calling me to follow him here, today, and walking together with him 24/7 until he says to me, “it is enough my son, it is time to go home.” Three years ago I published my first book entitled Live Simply Leave Legacy, it’s a journey of my 40 years walking with Jesus. Since that moment, I have felt that my life today is in the second half period. Knowing this, I have begun  to focus on how to really live simply, learning to let go of things I shouldn’t carry while following God, and building my legacy right now, starting with my family. While I am studying here, my heart and mind have been searching a lot in order to do something for others. I am longing to join with my friends back home to help others in need. At the same time, I realize my season here at my Theology and Peace Studies at AMBS is also a time for preparing myself and my family for a greater purpose and maybe a greater challenge for the future of my ministry and my work, in the journey of reconciliation as mission. So, I lay down my will, my ego, my experiences, my sense of doing something for others, and have been learning to wait upon Jesus, learning to trust his timing, learning to ask his direction, remembering that he is the Alpha and the Omega, “the Lamb who was slain… and now is sitting on the throne.” In Christ I am secure. I want to share what Catherine Keller says in her letter again as my personal reflection and my belief that as we are facing this pandemic, God is calling us to be creative and to trust God in a new way that we have never experienced before, and to join with Jesus to do his mission. “This is not a story of top-down creating. This new creation comes as we cooperate with each other and with the divine source of every other. This is new creativity in and through whatever chaos besets us. The chaos might feel like the Apocalypse. But remember that apokalypsis, at least in the Bible, does not mean The End of the World. It means revelation: not a final closing down, but a great dis/closure.” Yes, this is a time when Christ wants to reveal himself in a new way. I want to know God more through these unpredictable seasons. And together with many people who are still longing for peace, hope, justice, freedom even during this crisis, I want to join in what Maya Angelou and James McClendon affirm:  “we only live once, if we do it right, once is enough.” “This is that, then is now.” 



Bibliography
​
Blount, Brian K. Then the Whisper Put on Flesh : New Testament Ethics in an African American 
Context. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001.

Drew Strait, lecture on Apocalyptic and Pandemic, AMBS Moodle. 

Frankl, Viktor Emil. Man's Search for Meaning : An Introduction to Logotherapy (version Rev. 
ed.), New York: Washington Square Press, 1969.

https://andiosville.wordpress.com/2020/03/21/together-we-can-move-the-mountain/

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/26/viktor-frankl-mans-search-for-meaning/ 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

McClendon, James Wm. Systematic Theology. Rev. ed. /ed. Vol. Volume 2, Doctrine /. Waco, 
Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2012.

Nelson Kraybill. Apocalypse and Allegiance. Grand Rapids, Michigan: BrazosPress, 2010.

Wright, N. T, and Michael F Bird. The New Testament in Its World : An Introduction to the 
History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 
Academic, 2019.

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Andios Santoso

of Surabaya, Indonesia, is a Master of Arts: Theology and Peace Studies student at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Computerized Accounting in 1999 from Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia, and a Master of Divinity in 2005 from Cipanas (Indonesia) Theological Seminary. From 2003 to 2014, he served as a pastor at Muria Christian Church of Indonesia — Gereja Kristen Muria Indonesia (GKMI) Koinonia in Surabaya. From 2014 to 2019, he was General Secretary of the Muria Christian Church in Indonesia Synod — GKMI Synod in Semarang. He has also volunteered as Secretary for the Indomenno Association (2018–present), as a member of the Mission Commission of Mennonite World Conference (2015–present). Andi’s ministry interests include service, discipleship, community development, peacebuilding, and working with young people. He enjoys networking, coaching, teaching, playing music, writing, and inspiring others through social media. He and his wife, Chialis, have two daughters.  You can find him on Instagram @andiosville