Amen Yes

"In the early days of learning language, daily adding new words to her vocabulary, Karen asked what Amen meant. I said that it was a word that meant Yes. When we say Amen, whether at the supper table or in church, we are affirming the prayer that another offered: "Yes, that's right. I'm in on this too."

She said, "So why don't we just say Yes?" I told her that she could if she wished. But the people who had started the Christian church in the first place said Amen because that was Yes in their language, and Christians have just kept doing it. And Jesus was very fond of the word and said it a lot.

From then on, sometimes she would say "Amen" and sometimes "Yes" and sometimes "Amen Yes."

I especially like Amen Yes. Every time she said it, I was reminded of Paul's words to the young first-generation church in Corinth: "Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God's Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident, God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us."

from The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

(art credit: SingYes Large Red Flower by rowenamurillo at etsy)