Wordsmithing Love

There is a tendency for preachers to use a vocabulary often not used in the day-to-day of life. Narthex; its the lobby outside the sanctuary. Sanctuary; its the place we gather for worship. Worship, its a word designating how we can respond to God (and so on). Such church-speak while familiar to insiders, leaves the unchurched baffled and wondering what planet we fell off, which is why I avoid church-speak where possible. The scripture I've been wrestling with this week is from the Book of Ruth. Did you know that there are only 85 verses in this book and yet the word "redeem" is used some 23 times. So I started asking people to define it. Typically my question was met by blank stares and/or silence. God's honest truth? I found the word a bit hard to define myself. If you're old enough to remember Blue Chip or Green Stamps, you might remember the "Redemption Centers" where you could trade in completed stamp books for a can opener. Where else does that word pop up? In the Old Testament "redeem" is a legal concept used to describe the recovery of something sold (by necessity), through payment of some kind. Lev. 25:25 says if someone is forced to sell his or her property to pay a debt, the next of kin was obligated to repurchase it for them, given the means. Of course that seldom happens, hence the popularity of such reality TV shows as Pawn Stars! New Testament writers use "redeem" to describe Jesus' death on the cross, meaning Jesus has paid for our sin, restoring us to a right relationship with God. In other words, we have become the redeemed; and the redeemer? The one who loves us enough to recover what was lost. To quote the Prodigal's father in Jesus' parable, "My child was lost and now is found." We may not use it much but the word "redeem" holds profound meaning both for the one on the receiving end, and the one on the giving end.