Part 2 - Flesh Speaks

Language is a great tool to help us share the things that mean something to us. Words give us the freedom to express life, love, hope, and myriad other emotions and experiences that fill our lives.

But language isn't perfect. It comes up short. The crazy thing is that it comes up short in different places for different people. Take for instance the word "stewardship." It's not an uncommon word. I'd guess that a good number of high school seniors would have atleast heard the word before. But you may not have the same understanding of "stewardship" that I have. The first time I heard the word, it was related to a fund raising campaign to build a church. Stuffy men we knew from church wanted to help us be good stewards of the money God had given us by helping them to build a fancy new building and parking lot. Never mind the fact that my father had been out of work for a year and we were... struggling. So my first taste of stewardship wasn't a tasty one.

And each of us could tell a story like that whether in the church or out of it, words get mis-shapen and misused and all along the way, beautiful ideas and thoughts crumple and wrinkle from misuse.

That's a sad thing, simply for language sake. But when we're talking about eternal things, it's even more sad because those things really matter.

Grace
Peace
Hope
Love

Each of those words means something, and they probably mean something different to you than they do to me. Atleast in their shades of meaning. These words have eternal implications, so how do I handle them? How can I talk about grace to you if you have no context, no understanding, maybe even no real exposure to the idea of grace as I understand it.

...And the word became fl esh, and dwelt among us... John 1:14

It's important, I thnk, to understand that all ideas and concepts originate with God. I believe that everything has its beginning and finds its fulfillment in God, so Grace & Peace and all the others are His ideas. Even words like hate, darkness, prejudice, and despair are ultimately defined by God or His absence in a place. In order for any of us to even have a hope of getting it, we had to get it from him.

You think it's tough to communicate with someone from a foreign country... try communicating from the divine to the fallen. But God, in His wisdom and love found a way to communicate... to translate if you will, what He was (Grace, Love, Truth, Purity). He put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:14 Msg).

Scriptures talk about Christ... image of the invisible God, the exact representation of His being... so many other things that point us to the fact that who Christ was is crucial to our understanding who God is. Christ is the translation.

I think the important thing for me now is that the best way for me to communicate grace to someone who may not understand it... or may think they understand it, but understand differently from me... is to live it. To give it flesh and dwell in places where it can be reckoned with.

That's where the Church has lost a lot of credibility. We talked about love and the poor, but we didn't do anything. Let us first be gracious, then preach grace. Let us first be forgiving, then preach forgiveness. Let us first live with the hope of forever, then talk about hope. Most of all, let us first hunger and thirst after righteousness... then and only then will our lives cause others to hunger and thirst as well.

I'm still wrestling with this idea of translation. So far I think 1) it's not enough to say words to people who may not understand or have any idea what I'm talking about. That's not polite, and it's most certainly not effective. 2) A concept modeled is a concept translated... partly.

Which raises the question... probably for Part 3... if a concept modeled is a concept translated, what happens when two different people act two different ways and both call it the same thing... which is right? Which one has the better translation?