2021AFC051421 – Important As This
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THIS WEEKEND MANY PARISHES AROUND THE WORLD WILL BE COMMEMORATING THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASCENSION. THAT EVENT OCCURS ON A THURSDAY (MAY 13TH THIS YEAR), BUT THE CELEBRATION IS OFTEN TRANSFERRED TO SUNDAY SO THAT MORE OF THE FAITHFUL CAN PARTICIPATE. I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THE ASCENSION MANY TIMES IN THESE PAGES, SO FOR TODAY, I AM GOING TO LOOK AT THE READINGS FROM THE SEVENTH SUNDAY IN EASTER. THERE ARE SOME REAL GEMS IN THOSE READINGS. You can find those readings HERE. If you read them, you will see that indeed God is our Help. (↔ Music Link)
John 17:16-21 – 16 They do not belong to the world, just as* I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As* you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As* you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Today we will link up with some previous posts as background for today’s peek into Scripture. A couple of years ago there was an Aloha Friday Message called 1917AFC042619 – THIS is important. It was referenced later in “2021AFC052220 – What is doubt?” and “2024AFC061220 – Call it what it is.” Today’s title is like the one in 2019. We’re going to look at another tiny word that doesn’t seem to have much “oomph” to it; but, it is in fact one of the most powerful and most used words in the Bible. The word we are looking at today is “as.”
You’ll recall, I hope, that I’ve told you the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, not Aramaic, or Hebrew, or Latin. Koine Greek is a hybrid blend of four dialects of ancient Greek. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses. After Alexander the Great took rule over Macedonia, he invited all the peoples he conquered to be citizens – not slaves – in his empire. He insisted that the entire empire speak one united language, and gradually Koine Greek solidified. It developed, expanded, intensified, and spread across the known eastern hemisphere up to and beyond the time of Jesus.
For verbs there is tense, voice, mood, person, and number. Each of these components can be added to a root verb to make a very precise and very complex word with intensified meaning. Nouns have case, number, and gender. In the same way that verbs take on accretions of meaning, nouns and pronouns also take on deeper meanings with additional very slight modifications. Adjectives have the same types of modifiers as nouns, so an adjective plus a noun connected to a verb speaks volumes. There can be a paragraph of meaning in English for just a few words in Greek. If we throw in some adverbs, we have indicators for time, place, and manner all related to actions. It grows more and more precise with each part of speech added to the composition – participles, prepositions, conditional “if-then” phrases, and conjunctions. I share this with you to help you understand that one tiny word with one tinier modification can have very clear and intense meaning when surrounded by other words which are also minutely, but precisely modified. If you would like to delve into that more deeply, a good place to start is Grammar & Morphology of Koine Greek by Dr. Todd Bounds.
Now with that background in mind, let’s see what wondrous things we can find in a tiny two-letter word, “as.” In today’s Key Verse I highlighted each occurrence of As*. Here’s what we find in the Koine Greek version of that passage. “As” is καθὼς kathos {kath-oce’} kathōs. It is an adverb. When an adverb modifies a verb, it tells us how, when, where, why, how often, or how much the action is performed. They often, but not always, end in -ly. This word, kathos, is derived from two other Greek words which carry the denotative meanings of “according to,” and “compared to/to the extent of.” Kathos, then is “in proportion, to the degree that” and the connotative meaning is “just as, fully, exactly as, even as, to the same degree.” Thus, when Jesus says, “ They do not belong to the world, just as* I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” the message to the first-century reader of the Gospel (and to you Belovéd and patient reader) is “They do not belong to the world in precisely that same way and for the same reasons that I do not belong to this world.”
Looking at the next occurrence, “ As* you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” we see a conditional form of statement – as and so. “In the exact manner and circumstances you sent me on a mission to do your works in the world I have sent them into the world in that fashion, too.” In verse 21, then, we have, “ As* you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” I know you are familiar with the “identity symbol” – the ≡ sign. We could substitute that symbol for “as”: ≡ you, Father are in me and ≡ I am in you, ≡ may they also be in us ≡ the world may ≡ believe that you have sent me. As you can see in this image, Jesus goes on to say – 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be ≡ one, ≡ we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become ≡ completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as ≡ you have loved me. (John 17:22-23) In this we can glimpse the immensity and totality of the Love of God for his Son and, through and in Jesus, for us. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you,” and then he prayed for every single one of us to be One with the One God – El Shaddai-Olam – as his friends, as his children, as his Belovéd. ʻŌmea, that is so beautiful as to bring tears to our eyes!
Now, you see that the little word “as” is not a gnat but an elephant. It carries a lot of weight. What if we looked at another “as” verse in the same way? In the 1917AFC042619 message, we looked closely at the phrase “This is my body.” When Jesus says, “this is my body,” his declaration is that what he is about to share – pieces from the broken loaf of bread – IS HIS Body. He is not saying, “this represents my body,” “this is like my body,” “this is a symbol of my body,” or “pretend my body is bread.” He means what he says: “this is my body.” In the next sentence, there is another declaration in the form of a command: “Do this in remembrance of me.” We could employ the same identity equation format here and say “bread ≡ body,” and “do ≡ act in remembrance of me.” Where else do we have a very clear command from Jesus? Well, as you know there are about 150 places where he gives very specific directions, but one that people seem to remember easily is in John 13:34 – 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ≡ love you, ≡ one another. Or how about John 15:9 – 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide (↔ Click Link) in my love. ≡ Father has loved me, ≡ I have loved you; stay connected to us in our love. And again in John 15:12 – 12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. As ≡ my commandment, ≡ you love one another ≡ I have loved you.
What Wondrous Love (↔ Music Link) we share!! We carry such a treasure, held in earthen vessels, (↔ Music Link) as our Great Joy (↔ Music Link). Shall we refuse to Love One Another (↔ Music Link)?
Belovéd, as Jesus loves us, let us love as Jesus, and in Jesus, let us love one another as he commands because God Is Love – 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-12) As we listen, as we pray, as we worship, remember THIS as is important. Now we know that in Scripture we should hear more than AS when we hear as in our hearts and minds as Jesus intended it. Let us hear not only “as” but also “≡,” because Important ≡ THIS.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
