besquared.org Blog

I know that if I am going to make it through Luke I should really move on. And I hope to soon. (Maybe even later today.) I am having trouble for two reasons. First, I am having trouble finishing my post on Mary’s song in the next section. (Feel free to read ahead.) Second because I keep thinking about Mary’s words, “I am your servant.” (NIV)
Older translations render this word servant as “handmaid” or “bondmaid.” I am not a translation prude but I miss the old word. In part because translating it servant is sloppy. In part because these other words have so much more evocative power.

Servant is a sloppy translation, because the word used is the feminine form of doulos. Doulos means slave. It does not mean servant. “Servant” – as a word – lacks power because there are so many kinds of servants. Some serve by choice and other by coercion. Some serve for the money and if they decided not to get paid they could quit serving. This sense of “servant” and employee is so common in our household that the word has lost much of its power. It still implies a humble status but it has lost it connotations of obedience and subservience.

The closest our modern world might have to the image Mary uses is that of a personal assistant to a demanding boss (assuming that personal assistant did not get paid and could not quit). The personal assistant dedicates the whole day to the will and purposes of the boss. The archaic English word “handmaid” gets at this pretty well. This describes the role a noblewoman’s most intimate servant to responded and acted out her every need and in some sense acted as an extension of the noblewoman’s self.

I want to be that way with God.  I tremble to imagine what good purposes God could work in my life if I could commit to being his slave.  A lot in me fights that idea, but I know it would be great.  God has such good ideas.  He is always doing the coolest and best stuff, why wouldn’t I want to be totally on board.

I have a series of events in my last ministry called the Nights of the Bizarre.  When I invited my students to attend, I would never tell them what was happening.  I would only tell them how messy the event would be so they could dress appropriately.  My promise was this, If they came and they did what I said, they would have the time of their life.  If they didn’t they would regret it when they heard what happened.  The first one was my poorest attended event ever.  But I kept my word.  After one year, the Nights of the the Bizarre were my best attended events.  And I never once once told them what would happen before they came.

God is often just that mysterious, but God’s track record is even better.  I want to show up and say, “God I am your slave.  Your will is my will.  Your prupose is my purpose.  I don’t know what you have planned, but I am sure that it will be the time of my life, and if were to choose to follow some other way but yours, I know that I will regret having missed the great adventure you havve prepared for me.”

I know that in a few pages Jesus is going to challenge some people to follow him.

I’m in.

-Ethan