The Wonderful World of Words - part 6

(Another exciting installment of)

The Rev. Know-it-all’s Wonderful World of Words! (Continued)

There are lots of grand words being bandied about in church these days, words such as Eucharist, and Liturgy. These are Greek words, the meanings of which most people are quite ignorant. When I was a boy and directory information was a free service, we just called it Mass.  Unfortunately, Mass is not the best word for the central ceremony of the ancient Christian faith. Mass is a word that comes from the Latin word “Mitto” which means to send or to let go. Among the last words of the old Mass were, “Ite! Missa est,” which essentially means, “you can go now,” or even perhaps “get out of here, the priest needs a nap.”  (This second translation is a bit looser than the first which is more literal.)  “Go. It’s finished.” To which the congregation responded “Deo gratias!” (Or “thanks be to God!)  Again, a more poetic translation of the congregational response may be, “Thank God, the old windbag is finally finished!” 

In the early Church, people went to Mass because it was a taste of heaven on earth.  In later times when Christianity was the state religion there was a certain amount of force involved in the Sunday and holy day obligation.  If you weren’t at Mass regularly the local peasants might think you guilty of witchcraft or heresy or even worse, not believing in all this stuff.   One patiently endured the service until those precious words were heard ‒ “Ite, Missa est!” Since “Missa” was one of the only intelligible words heard by the unwashed mob, they started calling it the Missa, in effect the “Go Away!”  Imagine a conversation between two mud splattered peasant farmers in Lower Upper Hessia sometime during the Dark Ages “Are you going to the early Go Away or the late one?”   “Oh, the early Go Away, of course. They never have a sermon or a choir at that one and it only takes fifteen minutes.” Don’t be shocked at my cavalier attitude.  With the exception of knowing that the word “Mass” was derived from the word “to send away,” that is a conversation I often heard in my youth. Where I grew up, the Dark Ages as well as Prohibition lasted well into the 1960’s.

So, what should we call the unbloody re-presentation of Christ’s saving sacrifice on the cross?  I’m all for calling it “Mass.” After all, there has been a lot of linguistic water under the bridge. I always find people who talk about the Noon Liturgy or the Sunday Eucharist a bit tedious. Don’t get me wrong, the words Eucharist and Liturgy are useful especially when trying to speak with some theological precision. Still, you can always tell that someone has taken a theology course downtown when they bandy the word Eucharist or Liturgy about too frequently. If you meet any of these bandiers of fancy words, you will be able to ask them what these words mean and I’ll bet you they are clueless. If you can endure finishing this article you will know the precise meaning and origin of the terms and will be abler to make the fancy bandiers feel just a bit foolish.  Sounds like fun, no? 

The word Eucharist is a Greek word that means thanksgiving. The sages of the Jews at the time of Christ held that when the messiah came all the sacrifices of the law would cease except for the thanksgiving sacrifice, or in Hebrew the Korban Todah, “korban” meaning sacrifice and “Todah” meaning thanks in Hebrew. If you can pull out some Hebrew word you will definitely impress.  The thanksgiving sacrifice was a personal sacrifice. It could not be offered on Saturday, the Sabbath unless it was Passover.  It is my theory ‒ that I have pushed on you time and time again ‒ that the Christians offered Mass on Sunday, not on Saturday because they thought of the Mass as the fulfillment of the belief that it was the ultimate, the messianic thanksgiving sacrifice.

In the law, the thanksgiving sacrifice was offered when one had been saved from death. There was an offering of a lamb whose sacrifice blood was sprinkled along with loaves of bread and a pouring out of wine. The bread was taken home to be eaten by friends and family on that day, provided home was in Jerusalem. The reason that all the sacrifice of the law would be cancelled by the coming of the messiah is that there would be no more sin. The disciples quickly realized that Jesus had offered the messianic sacrifice at the last supper in which bread and wine became the lamb which was Christ. We have been offering it ever since, because our messiah Jesus has saved us from sin, the death of the soul, as well as giving us hope of eternal life.

Next week, Liturgy

PS ‒ the words “missal” and “missalette” (the book or pamphlet from which the Mass is read) as well as “missile” a projectile sometimes carrying a nuclear warhead are all derived from the same Latin root of “Mitto”.  It is best not to confuse the terms. If someone shouts, “Watch out, there is an incoming missile!”, he is probably not referring to any kind of prayer book.

The Wonderful World of Words - part 6

(Another exciting installment of)

The Rev. Know-it-all’s Wonderful World of Words! (Continued)

There are lots of grand words being bandied about in church these days, words such as Eucharist, and Liturgy. These are Greek words, the meanings of which most people are quite ignorant. When I was a boy and directory information was a free service, we just called it Mass.  Unfortunately, Mass is not the best word for the central ceremony of the ancient Christian faith. Mass is a word that comes from the Latin word “Mitto” which means to send or to let go. Among the last words of the old Mass were, “Ite! Missa est,” which essentially means, “you can go now,” or even perhaps “get out of here, the priest needs a nap.”  (This second translation is a bit looser than the first which is more literal.)  “Go. It’s finished.” To which the congregation responded “Deo gratias!” (Or “thanks be to God!)  Again, a more poetic translation of the congregational response may be, “Thank God, the old windbag is finally finished!” 

In the early Church, people went to Mass because it was a taste of heaven on earth.  In later times when Christianity was the state religion there was a certain amount of force involved in the Sunday and holy day obligation.  If you weren’t at Mass regularly the local peasants might think you guilty of witchcraft or heresy or even worse, not believing in all this stuff.   One patiently endured the service until those precious words were heard ‒ “Ite, Missa est!” Since “Missa” was one of the only intelligible words heard by the unwashed mob, they started calling it the Missa, in effect the “Go Away!”  Imagine a conversation between two mud splattered peasant farmers in Lower Upper Hessia sometime during the Dark Ages “Are you going to the early Go Away or the late one?”   “Oh, the early Go Away, of course. They never have a sermon or a choir at that one and it only takes fifteen minutes.” Don’t be shocked at my cavalier attitude.  With the exception of knowing that the word “Mass” was derived from the word “to send away,” that is a conversation I often heard in my youth. Where I grew up, the Dark Ages as well as Prohibition lasted well into the 1960’s.

So, what should we call the unbloody re-presentation of Christ’s saving sacrifice on the cross?  I’m all for calling it “Mass.” After all, there has been a lot of linguistic water under the bridge. I always find people who talk about the Noon Liturgy or the Sunday Eucharist a bit tedious. Don’t get me wrong, the words Eucharist and Liturgy are useful especially when trying to speak with some theological precision. Still, you can always tell that someone has taken a theology course downtown when they bandy the word Eucharist or Liturgy about too frequently. If you meet any of these bandiers of fancy words, you will be able to ask them what these words mean and I’ll bet you they are clueless. If you can endure finishing this article you will know the precise meaning and origin of the terms and will be abler to make the fancy bandiers feel just a bit foolish.  Sounds like fun, no? 

The word Eucharist is a Greek word that means thanksgiving. The sages of the Jews at the time of Christ held that when the messiah came all the sacrifices of the law would cease except for the thanksgiving sacrifice, or in Hebrew the Korban Todah, “korban” meaning sacrifice and “Todah” meaning thanks in Hebrew. If you can pull out some Hebrew word you will definitely impress.  The thanksgiving sacrifice was a personal sacrifice. It could not be offered on Saturday, the Sabbath unless it was Passover.  It is my theory ‒ that I have pushed on you time and time again ‒ that the Christians offered Mass on Sunday, not on Saturday because they thought of the Mass as the fulfillment of the belief that it was the ultimate, the messianic thanksgiving sacrifice. In the law, the thanksgiving sacrifice was offered when one had been saved from death. There was an offering of a lamb whose sacrifice blood was sprinkled along with loaves of bread and a pouring out of wine. The bread was taken home to be eaten by friends and family on that day, provided home was in Jerusalem. The reason that all the sacrifice of the law would be cancelled by the coming of the messiah is that there would be no more sin. The disciples quickly realized that Jesus had offered the messianic sacrifice at the last supper in which bread and wine became the lamb which was Christ. We have been offering it ever since, because our messiah Jesus has saved us from sin, the death of the soul, as well as giving us hope of eternal life.

Next week, Liturgy

PS ‒ the words “missal” and “missalette” (the book or pamphlet from which the Mass is read) as well as “missile” a projectile sometimes carrying a nuclear warhead are all derived from the same Latin root of “Mitto”.  It is best not to confuse the terms. If someone shouts, “Watch out, there is an incoming missile!”, he is probably not referring to any kind of prayer book.

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WORDS - PART 5

The Rev. Know it all’s Wonderful World of Words! (Continued)

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

I have a word for you: ἰχθύς. What does that mean? My strange pastor has just put up a sign in front of the church which has the church name, a line drawing of a fish with that word inside the fish and at the bottom of the sign there are five words “Jesus Christ Son of God Savior.”

I can never understand why this guy won’t just speak English.

Yours,

Helen Istick

Dear Helen,

Your pastor is clearly a well-educated and cultivated scholar. What he has done is to place the most ancient Christian Creed on the sign in front of the church. “ἰχθύς” is a Greek word that means “fish,” but the first Christians used it as an acrostic, also a Greek word which means, “A series of lines in which certain letters, usually the first in each line, form a word. The letters of the Greek word for fish (ἰχθύς) can be used as a secret code to say “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” Here’s how it works.

Iota   (ἰ=i in English) stands for Iēsous, Greek for “Jesus”.

Chi    (χ=kh or ch) stands for Christos, Greek for “anointed” or Messiah.

Theta  (θ=th) stands for Theou, Greek for “God's”.

Upsilon (y or u) stands for ‘yios, Greek for “Son”.

Sigma (s) stands for sōtēr, Greek for “Savior”.

It’s like the old barber shop quartet song “M” is for the million things she gave me, “O” is for the other things she gave me… put them all together they spell “Mother.”  In this acrostic of “I, ch, th, y, s” they all spell “fish.” A bit of a letdown, until you understand the symbol. The fish made the early Christians think of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes which was a symbolic allusion to the Holy Eucharist. It also reminded them of the sign of Jonah in the belly of the whale, thus reminding them of the resurrection after Jesus’ three day in the tomb.

In the first centuries of the church’s life, it was against the law to be a Christian then as it frequently still is. When a Christian saw the sign of the fish he knew he was in good company. The fish symbol was a secret way to express the earliest creed of Christians. It was in use at least a century and probably much longer than the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, both of which appear around 300 years after the death and resurrection of the Lord.  We see the fish symbolism all over the catacombs in which the first Christians buried their dead in the hope of the resurrection. Fish are all over the New Testament, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, the miraculous catch of fish after the resurrection and the subsequent fish that Jesus cooked for the disciples on the beach that day. Jesus says they will be fishers of men and don’t forget the fish with the tax coin in its mouth.

The Gospels have fish swimming all through them. And fish was the food of the poor. Only the rich ate beef, and other meat was eaten rarely, but anyone with a pole, a line and hook could go down to the river or the sea and catch a fish. So too, the Gospel is food for the poor. When you see fish bumper stickers or fish jewelry, fish ornaments and decorations, understand that the first Christians are still reminding us of the faith for which they lived and died the faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and the savior of the world.

Yours,

the Rev. Know-it-all

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WORDS - PART 4

The Rev. Know it all’s Wonderful World of Words! (Continued)

Speaking of dunking, we kind of re-dunk every time we walk into a church and we put our hand into the holy water fountain to remind ourselves of our baptism as we say, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” We profess the basic creed into which we were once baptized every time we make the sign of the Cross.  A lot of people think the Trinity is just not reasonable. “If you are going to believe in one God, do not say three. God has no companion or equal. He does not beget nor is he begotten.”  Those who believe that the oneness of God is corrupted by the concept of a trinity (three divine persons in one divine being, equal in majesty and divinity) are called Unitarians. Of the three Abrahamic religions, two are Unitarian. Only Christianity believes in the three in one concept of divinity. Our other monotheist brethren think the idea of a trinity is simply illogical and unnecessary.  Actually, the trinity is absolutely reasonable if you concede one point, that God is Love. The largest single Unitarian religion in the world today insists that though man should love God, God does not love man in equal and reciprocal way. To love Man as an equal would be to lower himself. Love would put God at the level of God’s beloved, and thus it would make a mere human out of God. God is not love! Love would diminish God. 

Certainly it can be said that there are those God loves, perhaps as you might love a pet dog, but if necessary you would put your dog down. Your dog is in no way your equal, and certainly not free to do as he pleases against your will. Such Unitarians logically believe that God is absolutely sovereign. He cannot be love. He cannot be three in one. Herein appears the weak spot in the argument.  If God is, as the Unitarians say, is absolutely sovereign, then who are we to say that he cannot have a son?  Who are we to say that He cannot humble himself for love of Man? 

That is exactly the point that we believe Jesus of Nazareth taught. The creator of the universe did not create all things in it just for the sake of creating. As the Hebrew Scriptures say, “He who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited.”  He made it for love of us, we Christians believe.  The Unitarians are absolutely right if God is completely other. They are absolutely wrong if God is love.  If God is love, they say He would be dependent on the beings He loves for His very existence.  That would be true, if humanity is all He had to love. That is why if He is love, He must be a trinity. A father who loves perfectly by loving his perfect son, breathes out the Breath of Love, a love so perfect that it is itself a third perfect person.

St. John Paul the Great said that God is not a solitude as our fellow monotheists say, but a solidarity, not a lonely sovereign, but a loving father. This changes everything in our culture. When one is a strict Unitarian, the ultimate purpose of life becomes acquisition, pleasure, self- aggrandizement. That is the ultimate success. That is heaven. We Christians believe that unity with God, membership in that relationship, that family which is God is life’s ultimate purpose, “to know love and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” 

The Trinity provides the only possibility of a person who can perfectly love, and of a person who is completely worthy of that love.  Christianity teaches that the creator of all things humbled Himself for love of humanity by coming into the world as a humble working man. His becoming one of us for love of us does not diminish his greatness. It defines his greatness.  If you think God is power, omniscience, sovereignty, the idea of God become Man is preposterous. For God to be powerless humble and limited is utterly contradictory.  If the all-powerful humbles Himself, He would cease to be God! But if you believe that God is Love and that life’s purpose is true and sacrificial love, then it is possible to think that Love laid aside its grandeur and power but never ceased to be love. He never abandoned who He was and remains: perfect sacrificial love.  If Jesus of Nazareth was correct and is who claimed to be, there is nothing more reasonable than the Trinity. It all rests on a theory, the theory that God is love. The Cross is love’s great manifestation. The Resurrection is Love’s great proof. C. S. Lewis in the Screwtape letters assigns the idea that love is impossible for the devil.  The demon Screwtape says that the “Enemy,” really believes in this nonsense about love, but the dynamic  philosophy of hell teaches that two things can only become one by devouring, the stronger devouring the weaker. It is sheer nonsense to think that two can be one without the destruction of one or the other.

That is exactly the truth. If God is power, He cannot be more than one. If God is Love, He can and must become two in one, and more than two, for love is life giving. The spirt of Love can transform weak and sinful human beings into members of that family which embrace all the angels and saints as well as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  Amen. That’s what you are saying when you put your fingers in the Holy Water fount. That is what you are saying when the Mass begins.  You are saying that you believe in Love, even though in this war weary world, it may be an outdated concept.