Idioma Sagrada
The Sacred Language of the Kingdom
Isaiah 6:8-9
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people: “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
As it turns out, the language you speak is not the only language that exists. To acknowledge this reality cultivates our own humility and begins a journey of listening and learning. What is more, this confession can lead to the discovery of a great treasure that Jesus holds for all who would follow Him.
What are some implications of this obvious fact? For one thing, no matter who you are, you need a translator to even understand the Bible (even if you speak modern Hebrew or Greek- the ancient versions differ greatly). For another, If you turn your ear to the ground to hear the rumblings of the praises of Heaven, you’ll hear something from ‘every language’ that has ever been spoken. Although we often act as if ours is the only language, and it seems super obvious when you actually say it - the God of the whole world speaks more than one language.
There is something profoundly forming about worshiping in more than one tongue—it stretches our capacity for compassion, for the other, for the stranger. If you ever even had a bilingual worship experience, then you have felt something of the wonder, beauty, and mild discomfort that comes when you hear something that you feels intrinsically familiar, yet remains obscurely foreign to you (this can happen if you are an English speaker and hear a familiar tune but the words are in Spanish, or if you hear what is obviously a worship song, but in isiZulu, Xitsonga, Sesotho, Afrikaans, Tshivenda, isiXhosa - as one of my favorite musical collectives “We Will Worship” intentionally writes and performs in all 11 of the official languages of South Africa)
Come Holy Spirit (Uthando) by We Will Worship
Across the world right now, people are praising God in languages that you don’t know. Travel to India and find the faithful praying unceasingly in one of hundreds of languages spoken in the country as they gather in homes for praise. Head to the Middle East where our brothers and sisters gather to hear their voices echo His praise in Arabic to worship the Father, even as those very words could cost them everything. Indigenous peoples with their sacred ancient languages and modern colonizing nations with their hybrid and rapidly changing dialects (English is the prime example of a rapidly changing language) can all be pointed to the realities of heaven revealed in the glory of Jesus.
If, however, I had to pick one language to use to declare the true Glory of God, it would be a language that is hard for people to understand, one that is - in fact - not of this world.
Language, defined by Merriam Webster, is “a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings.”
The Kingdom of God is like a language.
This language is a sacred language performed through meaningful words and symbolic actions. Those who speak it recognize and perceive the meaning at once in the Spirit. Those who do not speak this language are often as confused as someone listening to a language they do not know. Maybe they’ve heard it. Maybe they know some of the ‘words’ and sometimes say the ones they know ad nauseum and, intentionally or unintentionally, detach these words from their natural meaning and context. The reality is that they don’t truly speak it and understand it.
“This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’ In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
Yes, you are blessed with closeness to Christ if you see the kingdom and seek to live from its values. Many who witness your life and the Kingdom values that you seek to live out, however, will not understand it – to the point that it feels like they are deaf or blind or hard hearted when you try to explain. Sometimes those that misunderstand are enemies who are openly against you, but those that misunderstand often include your neighbors, friends, and even family members.
The true speech of the Kingdom will confound any other culture. That is:
To Receive the assignment of heaven with humility,
To Trust in the ways of Jesus rather than the ways of this world,
To Enact the eager sacrificial obedience that activates its power, and
To Embody the faithful and courageous perseverance to endure.
This combination nearly ensures that you will be misunderstood by some and even despised by others. The way of Jesus always looks foreign and backwards to the ones who do not know His heart and have His Spirit. In fact, Christ himself confessed that he had to speak in stories/parables, and his own actions often confused disparate groups for a variety of reasons because these actions only make sense as a demonstration of the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ guaranteed persecution and rejection for all who would truly follow him - and went ahead and pronounced such worldly rejection as ‘Blessed’ (not blessed by the actual rejection itself but by the kind of radical solidarity with Christ and His kingdom and righteousness that inevitably leads to rejection by the world).
If we, as humans, are so disadvantaged in hearing and understanding the Kingdom of God, then how can we hope to begin to speak it in word and deed?
God has created people with the capacity to learn languages, both a mother tongue and others through observation and effort. Here are some practical language learning tips.
Listening: Speaking the language of the Kingdom of God begins with prioritizing listening to the throne room of God over any other source of knowledge (i.e., leaning in and learning the language of the Kingdom of Heaven.)
Learning: Memorize the Gospel passages where Jesus describes the Kingdom in parables, and actively seek to learn about his symbolic Kingdom actions that are preserved in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.
Immersion: Through deep immersion, the kingdom language becomes the filter through which we begin to see the world and circumstances around us. We learn through immersing ourselves in the environment that uses this language as a primary means of communication. Find folks who radically practice the good news of the Kingdom of God and join them however you can. (many Wildfire Mission Leaders have become those folks!)
Practice: More practice. Speak it, probably fumble the phrases, and try again. Keep pursuing the demonstration of the upside down Kingdom of God with your time, treasure, and talent.
Review: We commit wholeheartedly to learning the structure and the vocabulary, submitting ourselves to a native teacher to understand correct pronunciation and nuance of meaning (aka discipleship). Ask someone who you feel is fluent in the language of the Kingdom with their life to help you by examining your own. And enter a season of reflective prayers of examen. Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you how you can grow further in the practice of this language.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
These are the ways of foreign language learning, and these also forge the way to learning the language of the Kingdom. We can look to general language learning for some basic practical guidance, but deep learning starts with a desire. This same desire that drove the rich young ruler to Jesus then becomes a prayer: “show me how to inherit the Kingdom” and we listen for Jesus to respond.
May you, the reader of this letter, not walk away sad by what is spoken by Jesus, but may you join the fruitful and eternal song of the Kingdom.
Seek first the Kingdom of God. Learn its national language. See how it feels to join the voice of the God who said ‘Let there be Light’ into darkness and chaos. This is what it means to announce the Gospel. It is to live out the Kingdom of Jesus in word and in deeds. The cruciform life. Oriented towards suffering for the sake of the benefit of others rather than asking or allowing others to suffer for your own gain. All glory for any beauty forever be to Christ, because He is the one making all things new.
Shalom.
Selah.
Amen.