The Greek of Life

I once taught a Bible study during which I shared a small portion of Codex Sinaiticus (the oldest Bible) and asked what people noticed. I was looking for several things: That it was not in English but Greek, the lack of punctuation and spaces between words, no indentations, and all the letters are capital letters. The response was, “It’s just a bunch of symbols.” “Of course,” I thought, letters are symbols that stand for sounds in a language. It was not until later that I realized  the respondent meant mathematical symbols. Which brings me to the Greek of Life. We are surrounded by Greek and may not realize it. Fraternities and sororities in college name themselves by Greek letter. If you had any math and remember it you know a bit of Greek like Pi (Π) or maybe delta (Δ). Now with global warming and corona-virus you have seen (or heard)  more of the Greek alphabet.  After running out  of the 21 names set aside for 2020 Atlantic hurricanes season the National Hurricane Center used nine Greek letters (alpha (Α) through Iota (Ι) to name them. Lately we are hearing about the lambda (Λ – the eleventh letter in the Greek Alphabet) variant of the coronavirus. These uses of Greek show us how unpredictable and fragile life can be – by natural occurrences and by what we have done to our world.

Fortunately you also know the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet alpha (Α) and omega (Ω). Or, actually, we know the one who is the alpha and omega of our lives – Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Savior. Jesus who spans our lives and the life of the world is our life and hope. This does not absolve us of the terrible things that we have done to his world or prevent terrible things from happening to us. Instead it calls us to live by faith, work to right the wrongs we have committed, and help others when chaos meets their lives. We do this several ways. First, we pray. We pray in thanks for what God has given us, for those in need, and for the ability to share our gifts with the world that is in so much need these days. Secondly, we read the Bible. We are better able to discern God’s call to us when we read of others who had answered the call of God and struggled in the midst of their world with the power of faith in their lives. Then we look at ourselves, our time, and our possessions to discern how God desires us to share them. There are many troubled and hurting neighbors in our world. We are called by Jesus, our all in all, to work with him using what he has given us to heal our suffering world. Pray for Jesus’ guidance, so that you, like the saints of old, will be able to answer your call and fulfill your part in Jesus’ salvation of the world.