If
you have ever participated in a Christmas play or been in the audience, you are
very familiar with this scene:
Suddenly there
was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
Glory to God in the highest,
Peace on earth and good will toward men.
That
is the translation I memorized in Sunday School before I was old enough to go
to elementary school. Today, I have a different understanding of the words of
the angels – an understanding that reflects the Jewish culture of the shepherds,
the family of Jesus and the Jewish nation of the first century. Let’s begin
with a new translation:
Glory to God in the Highest Heavens,
And on the Earth, SHALOM upon people of good will.
The
form in which the text is written is called a parallelism, which means the two lines are related in a format in
which relationships and meanings of words are highlighted. The layout below will help you see those
relationships better:
|
Glory
|
to God
|
in the Highest Heavens.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SHALOM
|
upon people of good will
|
on Earth.
|
Now
let’s unlock the meaning of the technical and theologically loaded word “glory.” When we examine its meanings in
a Hebrew lexicon, this is what we find:
Honor and Respect to God in the Highest Heavens.
A
technique we often use to examine the parallelism relationships and discover
their meanings is to make the first line a question and let the second line
answer it.
Q: How
does God in the Highest Heavens receive Honor and Respect?
A: God
receives Honor and Respect when SHALOM is upon people of good will on Earth.
The
angels announce that the birth of Jesus signals the arrival of a new age – a time when God received Honor and Respect.
This is ultimately what Jesus taught people to do. The problem is that 21st
century readers of English translations do not see what he taught.
Let’s
begin with the word “peace,” which I
translated as “SHALOM” above. The
English word “peace” doesn’t transfer
the “thoughts” connected to the Hebrew word SHALOM.
The word shalom, usually rendered by “peace,” has in effect little in common with its English equivalent. Shalom does not have the passive, even
negative, connotation of the word “peace.”
It does not mean merely the absence of
strife. It is pregnant with positive, active and energetic meaning and
association. It connotes totality,
health, wholesomeness, harmony, success, the completeness and richness of
living in an integrated social milieu. When people meet or part they wish each other shalom, or they inquire about each other’s shalom. (Hebrew: The Eternal Language by William Chomsky © 1957 by the
Jewish Publications Society of America, Philadelphia, PA; p. 4)
God is honored and respected when people
on earth do acts that make lives more SHALOM
-- complete, healthier, more wholesome, more
harmonious, and successful. Take another look at the last sentence in
William Chomsky’s comments above with his definition of shalom in mind:
When people meet
or part they wish or inquire about each
other’s totality, health, wholesomeness, harmony and success.
The
current state of a person’s life is important.
Think about Jesus’ famous “salvation
message” (Matthew 25:31-46) in light of that:
Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry
and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and
you took me in; I was naked and
you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.
Master, when did we see you hungry and
feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a
stranger and take you in, or
naked and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?
Amen! When you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,
you did it to me!
The people that did those things were focused on the current state of the lives of
people they encountered in their normal course of life. When they “saw” people whose lives were not
shalom -- they took the required actions to make them shalom. Take another look at what they did:
● you gave me food
● you gave me drink
● you took me in
● you clothed me
● you visited me
● you came to me
When many people, especially modern
Americans, read the list of things the people above did, they focus of the
food, drink, clothes, shelter, sickness, etc. They then focus on how to get
those things to as many people as possible. That helps a lot of people in need,
but it completely misses the key point in Jesus’ message. From a “heavenly perspective,” human life is measured in the number of breathes between the first at
birth and last at death. God is interested in what is done with those
breaths.
● You gave them some
of your breathes and your food – and your gave Honor and Respect to God in the Highest Heavens.
● You gave them some
of your breathes and drink -- and your gave Honor and Respect to God in the Highest Heavens.
● You gave them some
of your breathes and a place in your home -- and your gave Honor and
Respect to God in the
Highest Heavens.
● You gave them some
of your breathes and cloths -- and your gave Honor and Respect to God in the Highest Heavens.
● You gave them some
of your breathes and went to them -- and your gave Honor and Respect to God in the Highest Heavens.
Giving
breathes to make lives more shalom gives Honor and Respect to God in the Highest Heavens. It is something
that cannot be done by someone else, or bought or
sold for money. It is not a job or a religious ritual. It is something that
fate usually plays a big role in. We don’t pick most of the people we encounter
in the normal course of our lives. We don’t pick them and they didn’t pick us. We,
however, determine how we interact with them.
So how do we incorporate this lesson in
real life situations? Obviously, we have all limited time and resources. The answer is begin by giving someone some of
our breathes! As my longtime friend Reed Hamilton, “may his name be remembered,” used to say:
Smile and just
say “Hi.’”
That’s something we can all do – and for
them to get to know us!
Shalom,
Jim Myers
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