What do you usually do when you meet someone? You say hello or shake hands. That is the way we greet people.
But there is a country, far away from here, called the Sudan. There they greet people in a different way. They snap their fingers, like this.
In that country, our greeting at the beginning of worship would sound like this. (Snap … get congregation to snap back.)
As these people translated the Bible into their own language, they had to find a way of expressing what the Bible says in ways the people could understand. The word "reconciliation" means being united with God again as a friend, so they translated their ideas as: "Meet, snapping fingers together again."
This is a very important idea for us to remember. God wants to be our friend. He wants to snap fingers with us. And more than that, God wants to be like a parent to us, loving us and helping us — if we will let Him.
Let's snap our fingers once more, and remember God wants to be our friend. (Kenneth Mortonson is Senior Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Macomb, IL)
