Eats, Shoots & Leaves

AMONGST last year's Christmas books still to be properly read is Lynne Trusss Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The joke is in the punctuation: eats shoots and leaves is what a panda does; eats, shoots and leaves (with a comma after eats) is how a gangster might behave in a speakeasy.

There is something of the same problem with the Aramaic word Maranatha.

This word - or rather words - found in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 16:22, cf Revelation 22:20) can be written as Marana tha (meaning 'Come, Lord') or as Maran atha (meaning 'The Lord has come'). When you have New Testament manuscripts without normal spacing between words and without punctuation you have a problem. The Church Fathers thought it meant 'The Lord has come' but scholars nowadays take the view it means 'Come, Lord'. One meaning looks back. The other looks forward. As with the shoots and leaves, context is everything.

In fact this useful little phrase, collapsed into a single word Maranatha, has different and very helpful meanings. The world is a different place because of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. This is a world in which the Creator has taken upon himself human flesh and lived a fully human life. Just as the Divine has taken on the human, we human beings - fleshy men and women - take on Divine life and live with God for ever. That is the wonder of the Incarnation - if, of course, we accept the gift of salvation offered to us.

But three times a day the Church also prays 'Thy kingdom come'. The Lord's Prayer - prayed at the end of Morning Prayer, at the end of Evening Prayer and at the heart of the Mass - has the petition 'Thy kingdom come', another way of saying, 'Come, O Lord'. That reflects our patient belief, expressed in the Nicene Creed, that the Lord Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. The victory, already won by the Cross and Resurrection, will result in the eventual triumph of Gods kingdom.

As we focus this month on the Coming of Christ - his First Coming at Bethlehem (Maran atha) and his Second Coming at the End of Time (Marana tha) - we do well to focus too on his other Comings. We do well to pray 'Marana tha, Come, Lord Jesus' every time we are at Mass and experiencing his coming afresh into our lives and we do well to pray 'Marana tha, Come, Lord Jesus' as we prepare to meet him when we die.

May you and your family and friends know the Coming of Christ in your lives and experience the joy and peace of the Christmas Season. Marana tha!

+ Andrew Ebbsfleet



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