It's Greek to Me!

Last week this popped up on my Facebook account:

After laughing out loud for a bit a realization hit me: most non-pastor people have NO idea what it is talking about (and they completely miss the humor)!  

 

 

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, not English, so the word ‘Jesus’ looked like Ἰησοῦς  and ‘Christ’ was written Χριστός.  If you look at the first two letters of Χριστός, you see a big X (the Greek letter ‘chi’) and something that looks like a ‘p’ (it’s actually the Greek letter ‘rho’).  For centuries, these two letters standing together have become a symbol for ‘Christ.’  So the P with an X in the middle of it from the image above: Chi Rho…Christ! 

And to shorten it even more, the letter chi (X) has often been used on its own as a way to say ‘Christ.’  When I was in seminary, I never took the time to write ‘Christ’ in my notes.  I always simply used an ‘X’.  When people write Merry Xmas, they aren’t ‘dissing’ Jesus, they are simply using the long-standing Greek abbreviation for Christ (though I suspect they don’t realize it).

The Christian church abounds in symbols.  Take this fish for example.  People put it on the bumpers of their cars as a subtle way to show their faith, but what does it mean?  Again, we go back to Greek.  If you take the first letters of the phrase ‘Jesus Christ Son of God Savior’ you get ICQUS, which is the Greek for fish.  Who knew that by putting a fish on your car you were using Greek??

How about this one: IHS (it shows up in churches quite often).  That doesn’t look Greek, does it?  Actually, it is!  Remember Ἰησοῦς?   IHS gives the first three letters of it (when the letters are capitalized).

If people don’t understand a symbol it loses its power and meaning.  While teaching about some of the ancient symbols can be very helpful for people, I am a much stronger advocate for using Christian symbols which have more obvious meanings (and don’t take so much explanation).  Having to explain a symbol is like having to explain the punch line of a joke to someone: it misses something!

So…Merry Xmas.  I mean that in the most Christian sense possible!