Seriously Lost in Translation.

…I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:21-23

 

Details in communication matter.  I’ve been living without details for so long, I’d nearly forgotten what a difference they make.

My German is fine.  Not great.  But I’m a good fake.  And, as a result, I’ve walked away from so many conversations thinking things like, “Wait?  Am I supposed to pick up your kid, or are you picking up mine?  Am I hosting this play date or are you?  Are they eating dinner during or afterwards?”.  It’s a little tricky to understand what to do, when you’re not entirely sure to what you’ve just agreed.

Laugh with (or at) me if you like, but you might be more familiar with this dilemma than you realize.

When it comes to understanding scripture, we’ve also missed some key ingredients that otherwise should resonate with our daily lives in transforming ways.  Instead, they sit stuck… lost, too, in translation.  And it’s about time we understood what it is we, as Christians, have agreed to do…

There is an approach to living that many of us have never heard about.  Found 248 times in the Old Testament, it’s one of the most potent words in all of scripture.  It’s a word that, if we allow, will redefine the way we do life – across the board:

HESED.

Whole books have been devoted to this one Hebrew term; however, in my 30-plus years of being a Christian, it escaped me completely, and there’s an easy explanation why:  LAMAS.

(wait for it…)

There was once a man translating the Bible into a language used in a remote village.  When he came to the word “Lamb” he was at a loss.  These people had never heard of nor seen a lamb.  They would have no idea how to relate Christ to a fictional animal that meant nothing to them.  So, he did the best he could, and used a noun that they could understand: Lama.

You and I know that the difference between a lamb and a lama is vast.  To start with, Lama’s kick and spit (not very Christ-like).  But, in our English Bibles, the term Hesed might as well be a Lama.  And it’s causing us some problems.

More than half of the time “Hesed” is translated into “Mercy”, but that’s only because writing…

• Righteousness
• Grace
• Glory
• Hope
• Loyalty
• Strength
• Loving-kindness
• Steadfastness
• Faithfulness
• Unfailing LOVE
• AND Salvation

…Would take up a lot of space.

And it doesn’t stop there.  The concept requires at least two people – someone who is desperate and someone who has the power to help.

Then it take another a step farther. Because this is not just helping, it’s about helping when you could choose to walk away without any consequence to your reputation.  It’s Mercy, to be sure, but with an added approach most of us avoid.

My favorite example is found in the book of Ruth.  While taking refuge in the land of Moab from a long-time famine in Bethlehem, Naomi, the matriarch of the book, lost her husband.  Tragedy strikes again within the first 5 verses, when her two sons also die.  Hope is gone.

This story begins exactly where we’d expect it to end.  Alone, broke, widowed and barren, Naomi and her daughter’s-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, weren’t just in a tough situation, they were as good as dead.  And Naomi had nothing left to offer these women that were legally bound to her.  She knew it.  They knew it.

Together they packed up what little they had, and started walking the long journey back to Bethlehem.  On that dusty road, Naomi planned to release the girls of their obligation to her.  With purposeful determination, she turned to them and said:

“Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home.  May the Lord show you kindness (literally – HESED), as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me.  May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”  Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud.” Ruth 1:8-9

They cried because this was hard.  All of it – The loss, the love, the painful choices they were making.  But Naomi was convinced this was their only hope.  And “at this they wept aloud again.  Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye.” Ruth 1:14

Orpah’s choice to leave was both difficult and sacrificial.  She loved Naomi, but her decision was rational – obedient. Faced with the impossible, she agreed this was the only logical way forward.  Honestly, most all of us, at our best, would have done the same.

But Ruth… Ruth clung to Naomi…

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.  May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”  Ruth 1:16-17

Ruth called Naomi’s Hesed, and raised her one.  She didn’t make the rational choice.  She gave up her future.  As a known barren women and a young widow, Ruth went to a foreign land, took on new customs, pledged herself to a new God, and labored among the homeless.  AND, her dramatic decision of sacrifice, even when it wasn’t required or expected, is what saved the line of Christ.

Her choice saved you and me.

Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz together carried forward some of the greatest examples of Hesed we’ll ever see.  Four jam packed chapters that produced, against all odds, a baby boy named Obed.  Obed then had Jessie, and Jessie became the father of KING DAVID.  Not a small accomplishment.

It’s true, HESED is an extreme way of living.  But it’s the reason we have hope…

“Because of the Lord’s great love (HESED) we are not consumed, for His compassions (HESED) never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.“  Lamentations 3:21-23

God’s Hesed for us is a direct example of the kind of life that we’ve been challenged (248 times to be exact) to reproduce.

It’s time to discover the truth of what we’re reading.  We aren’t talking about a lama, and the concept is not fiction. We’ve got to learn to understand what God is saying, so we can live with Hesed displayed as a constant in our direct line of site.  After all, it’s one of the most basic rules to one of the most fundamental parts of our daily living.  Living without it means we’re not experiencing the fullness of life that God intended.

We’ve got to start looking for ways to practice this lifestyle of everyday gospel living.  Being a CHRISTian fundamentally includes being like CHRIST, and His example is Hesed.  It took two people – you and Him.  You were desperate and He had the power to help.  He could have walked away without consequence to His reputation.  But, to be certain, He didn’t.  Where does that leave you?  Rescued, yes, but you have the power to be so much more. We’re not lamas either, we should stop acting like one.

---

My eyes were opened to the term Hesed while reading “The Gospel of Ruth” by Carolyn Custis James.  She’s encouraged me to dig deeper and take a fresh look at the details I’ve been missing in scripture.  I pass the challenge along to you, my friends.