AMEN! ITS ORIGIN, MEANING AND USE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 101, 15 May 1937, Page 12

AMEN! ITS ORIGIN, MEANING AND USE

This venerable term of worship, as Dr. Moffatt has reeently reminded us in "His Gifts and Promises," is ono of the most widely and also the least intelligently used in the voeabulary of religion. Linking Mohammedan, Jewish and Christian worehip, as he points out, it has passed unchanged from Hgbrew into Greek, Arabic, Latin and English. And yet, though familiarity fea§ taken away its "foreign" sound, it probably con'veys as little to many wprshippers as does the mygteriow "Selah" in the PsaJms. If most of us were asked the meaning of "Amen-" we should probably reply, "So be it!" Yet, as the dictionarie3 remind us, it means equally, "So it is!" It has been used not only as a prayer that God will grant a desired end, but also as a declaration of firm eonfidence that a statement made, iu hymn or prayer, is true. Had the Gospels transliterated "Amen, Amen," instead of translating into "Verily verily," we should not so easily have forgotten this double meaning. It is helpful to remember the close similariities between this word and our word "Yes," which, of course, equals " Y"ea, be it" as well as "It is so." St. Paul stumbled into a glorious ex* pression by the Use of this same little word, in its Greek counterpart. Writing a rather tedious explanation about his absence from Corinth, hp plays with the word "Yes," and suddenly his pen takes. wings, as he finds yet an* other uame for his adored Lord: — "The Divine Yes has.at last sounded in Him, for Him is the 'yes' that affirms all the promises of God. Hence it is through Him that we affirrn our 'Amen' in worship." So we are reminded that, though Amen is a link between the worshippers of several religions, it is sung in a new mode in Chnistian worship. For in Christ God has answered many of man's age-long questdpns, vindieated his noblest hypotheses, as well as revealed unsuspeeted truth. And it is because Jesus is God's Yes that we can say "Amen — that is so, let it really be!" Worship, espeeially Christian worshdp, is ' very much more than the making of a joyful noise unto the Lord, and inflnitely more than. the more or less edifying entertaipment prflvided by choir and preacher, aided by the sporadic co-operation of the congregation, into which dt sometimes degenerates amongst us. It is the corporate affirmation of faith, the "taking-hold" of God and His promises. Creeds are out of favour to-day. But every true hymn and every real prayer involves a • ' eredo. ' ' Creeds become an intrusion upon worship rather than the essence of worship, only when, as Dr. Temple once said, we empha&ise the "I" instead of "God" in "I believe in God," It is not- my particular opinion, nor even faith, that is of chief moinent then, but the "worth of God," the recognition of which alone constdtutes true wor(th)ship. And so the "Amens," instead of being the final gasps of organ, choir, ' and the musically-minded part of the congregation, or the full-stops added to a preacher 's prayer, are really a test of the xeality of the service. Dr, Moffatt quotes Sir Walford Davies as sydng:— "An Amen cannot Ge too good. It is music's chanee to embody the great Christian affirmativC. In singing an Amen it is -well to pretend you v may never sing another, an.d put everything into it." . "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine un- ( belief," all tha't is in the Amen; but as we keep our thoughts fixed .on the Divine Yes, eonfidence grows in the doubting mind and the trembling heart; and the Amen strengthefiS td foi'tissimo. More than that, it would not be dif- ; ficult to show- that, , amidst all the ■ ' ' most urgent needs of the world, " of which preachers and politicians speak, and whieh they "explore "hvfeniies" tO ' discover, . there stands eupreme the , need that "all the people should say ; Ameh. -Fiederic Greeves.