Revelation
3:14 “And
to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the
faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation:
2
Corinthians 1:20 For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.”
For this reason, it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God.
When we are baptized we are called to
take up the battle against ‘sin, the world and the devil’, This is a battle
against all that dehumanizes, all that destroys and all that turns people into
machines.
We face in our country a huge crisis in
the way people in places of work are being turned into mechanistic
task-oriented producers. When Jesus, especially in John’s Gospel, talks about ‘the
world’, I find it helpful to reinterpret that as ‘the system’.
Increasingly in discourse about the
state of the NHS, administrators and politicians talk about ‘pressures in the
system’. Managers and those with power in ‘the system’ talk about how targets must
be hit to earn the funding to keep going – but in so doing, they forget they
are talking about patients in need and staff under huge pressure who are
people. This is just one example of the mechanization of humans in the
workplace. And it feels relentless. It is hard for individuals to feel they
make any difference in ‘the system’. But the system is not the master it appears to
be.
We are not slaves of the system. We are
citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, And the last word in the Kingdom is Amen.
This is a powerful word. It is the word which spells eventual overthrow of the
system. It is the word which will bring liberation.
And yet it is a word with very common
currency. It is the word we end every prayer with. The word which means, ‘let
it be so’, or quite simply, ‘yes’. And this word is also a word to describe
Jesus, the ‘faithful and true witness’ and ‘the origin of God’s creation’. It is a hugely subversive word. For it does
not believe in the system’s ultimate victory, even when it seems that it is all
pervading and all-powerful.
Having the last word in an argument, something
we have all no doubt done, is somehow considered a victory. Haven’t we all
heard ourselves trying to get one over our opponent by resorting to this kind
of puerile behaviour? This is what the system’s administrators will always
insist – that, in the end, the bottom line is cash, the most powerful
four-letter word in system think. We dare not be slaves to this four-letter master.
But we have another four-letter word.
And it is not a verbal battering ram or a trump card. It is not like a magic
spell either. It is quite simply THE last word, THE final utterance, THE alpha
and omega, THE end from the one who began all life.
Amen is the last word in the New
Testament. It is the word Jesus used most often in John’s Gospel, which was
translated in the King James’ Version as ‘Verily, verily… I say unto you’, and
in more modern translations became, ‘Truly, truly… I say to you’.
It became the accepted word to end
prayers fairly early on in the Christian tradition. And it was a word both Paul
and Peter use in their letters to signify the end of a passage of praise. It
is, as if, we cannot but help clothe our prayers with Jesus. It is, also, if
you think about it, interesting how we would say ‘in Jesus’ name, Amen’, to end
a prayer; in effect saying: ‘In Jesus’ name, In Jesus’ name.’
At the name of Jesus, every knee will
bow, every tongue confess him, King of Glory now. May we believe in The Amen not The System.
Jesus, the great Amen, our all in all, our sufficiency. Jesus as the Amen evokes in us again the response of worship as we say "amen" to all that he is, all that he does, all that he will do.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the words from 1 Chronicles 16 v.36 when after David's prayer of praise and thanksgiving we read: "Then all the people said, "Amen!" and praised the Lord.
So how might we say "amen' in the way we live today? I came across this joyful worship song whose video suggests some practical ways of living out amen. Have a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG04jJuMCGY
Music again enriches our worship as it can speak of what we cannot put into words. Our sung amen says so much more than just one word. It says yes to the one who always says yes to us. It enthrones Jesus as the Lord of all.
So I'm pondering (and the choirmaster has been looking at the music!) how wonderful it would be if our choir could sing the Amen from Handel's Messiah at the next carol service after the awe inspiring reading from John's Prologue. A response of praise to the God who comes to us in our humanity, full of grace and truth. And all the people said "Amen".
“So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never
ReplyDeleteLike earth’s proud empires pass away;
Thy kingdom stands and grows for ever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.”
This is the last verse of John Ellerton’s great Victorian evening hymn, ‘The day Thou gavest’. The verse starts with a great ‘Amen’, for ‘Amen’ means ‘so be it’. It is a supremely positive and affirmative word. When we close a prayer with an ‘Amen’ we are really saying ‘Bring it on, Lord’, ‘I whole-heartedly agree, so let’s make it happen!’ It is a commitment.
In Revelation 3, 14, Jesus is described as the Amen, the ruler of God’s creation, to one Christian community, the church at Laodicea. They were obviously being a bit ‘iffy’ about their faith, rather take or leave it, no real commitment. ‘I wish that you were either hot or cold’, Christ says, either committed to him or lost only in worldly activities. But they try to have it both ways, enwrapped in worldly wealth as a goal, and paying lip service to the riches that come from Christ. That is not the way of ‘Amen’, I whole-heartedly agree!
When we say ‘Amen’ in response to a prayer, we are making a commitment to what has been expressed before, and to God; no ‘hot or cold’, just the white-hot assent of faith. And that may be the point at which a dangerous, challenging and not wholly welcomed decision is made – the Amen moment. Jesus himself faced Amen moments on earth, hot or cold choices. His temptation in the desert was one. Another was when he turned his face from Galilee, where he was welcomed by the people, to Jerusalem, where he knew he would get a different reception. Ultimately, that moment was faced at Gethsemane, ‘Not my will, but yours, be done’; Amen, so be it! So in speaking to the Laodicean Christians, he was speaking from his human experience.
Jesus is ‘the Amen’ because of the choice he made in following God’s way rather than the way the world expected him to be and to act. Similar choices faced the Laodiceans, and they face us daily - to live in the kingdom of heaven here on earth or just to live on the earth. As Paul writes in the main blog, living the Amen is subversive, desirous of a new order in this world, where the qualities of God find expression in the ‘real’ world, and things have to change, threatening the vested interests of out time. Perhaps the church at Laodicea faced such huge difficulties they thought it was impossible to change things, so they lacked commitment. Let’s not make the same mistake!
We started with a quote from a hymn; let’s finish with another, this time from Isaac Watts. He paints a picture of Jesus’ reign here on earth, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth his successive his successive journeys run” – so that’s a reign on earth. Blessings abound; prisoners are loosed; the weary find rest; sons of want are blessed. This is not the present ‘system’ at all, which is very lukewarm about poverty, sharing and developing people fully, and needs to blow much hotter. Isaac Watts effectively says of the kingdom of heaven, ‘Bring it on!’, and concludes with the line “And earth repeat the loud Amen”.
So be it!
I am copying below what I found fromChabad .Org, followed by my prayer.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Talmud,1 the Hebrew word "amen" (pronounced "ah-men" or, in Ashkenazi pronunciation, "uh-main") is related to the word "amanah," meaning truthfulness, credence or belief. When we hear another reciting a blessing we respond with "amen"; thus affirming that we believe that which has just been said.
In addition, amen (אמן) is an acronym for the Hebrew words א-ל מלך נאמן, (El Melech Ne'eman), meaning "G‑d, the trustworthy King."
Rabbi Eliezer Posner
Dear Jesus
A few days ago, I watched the film "Silence". Ever since, I have woken up in the early hours of the morning with the horror of that film still fresh in my mind, haunting me, making me wonder why you watched and didn't speak to the thousands who were tortured. It doesn't satisfy me that you suffered with them. Where were you when they said, " Amen" ?
I wonder what you really mean when you say, " I am the truth , the way and the life".
My children think I ponder too much, look for understanding where there isn't any. I need to ponder. I need to think deeply. I can't let life pass me by without reflecting upon its meaning.
Look upon the continued suffering of those in areas of war, of the girls in Nigeria captured by Boko Haram and millions of people who suffer around the world both because of their faith and despite it.
O Great Amen, faithful and true witness , origin of God's creation, would you add your "Amen" to our prayers when we say amen?
Amen