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Today's reading
December 6, 2025
Revelation 1:10-11, 17-18; 4:8;
In Act 5, Scene 5 of Macbeth, the Scottish king has just lost his wife, and his enemies are closing in to end his reign. With cold dejection at the destination of his path, he laments:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
In these words, Shakespeare captures the futility that seems to follow at man’s heels. Each day may bring fortune or struggle, sickness or health, life or death. And as time marches on, the inevitable questions about the meaning of our breath land hard.
We wonder if we made a difference.
We wonder if we are truly loved.
We wonder why things happened the way they did.
The apostle John was an old man when he received his vision of the future of heaven and earth. No doubt he retreated to reflection about his own life and ministry as he endured isolation on the Isle of Patmos. As he is invited into the revelation of God, he is met with multiple statements about God’s relationship to time. The glorious Messiah begins by saying,
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.”
Revelation 1:10–11 (NKJV)
John goes on to describe the appearance of the Son of God—clothed in pure white, holding seven stars, a sharp two-edged sword proceeding from His mouth, and a radiance brighter than the sun at full strength. John immediately falls to the ground as though dead. Then he feels a hand on his shoulder, and the Son of God begins to speak:
“Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
Revelation 1:17–18 (NKJV)
Jesus is addressing a man who has watched many of his friends lose their lives and who is nearing the end of his own. His first words assure John that the One he has served stands outside of time and has defeated the indomitable foe of death.
Then John is invited deeper into the throne room of heaven. He watches as the Seraphim—also called living creatures—bow before God in ceaseless praise, singing:
“Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!”
Revelation 4:8 (NKJV)
These creatures praise God for His holiness, which is expected—but they close their song by acclaiming,
“Who was, and is, and is to come.”
When they sing this truth, they are proclaiming the eternal “now” of God.
Unlike Macbeth—who saw time as a slow crawl toward meaninglessness—John is invited to see that God does not move through time the way we do. He does not wait for tomorrow, recall yesterday, or grow old with the passing of years. As Eleonore Stump puts it, God “possesses all of life all at once.” Time does not happen to Him. He stands sovereign over it.
Every moment—past, present, and future—is immediately present before Him.
He sees Abraham’s journey, Bethlehem’s cradle, Calvary’s cross, the empty tomb, our present struggles, and our ultimate future all at once.
This is one of the shades of meaning in the name given to Jesus at His birth. An ancient prophecy was fulfilled when He received the name Immanuel, meaning “God with us.”
The implications are profound. Certainly, God came physically near to us in the incarnation—but that was only the exclamation point of an eternal truth. God has always been WITH US, because He is simultaneously present in yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
And this—the eternality of God—is what gives our lives meaning.
Macbeth looked at time and saw a cage built by a distant, maniacal tyrant.
But the heavens sing a different song.
They tell of a God who is in complete control of time because He stands outside of it.
And we, being made in God’s image, are invited into His eternal purpose and His eternal presence.
Because this is true,
our past is not wasted, our present is not meaningless, and our future is not uncertain.