The worst thing that could ever happen to a Jew in the Old Testament was to have God turn his back.

If Jesus was to be forsaken, truly forsaken by God, on the cross, God had to turn his back.

If you look in your gospel of John where it says the word was with God,

there's a harmless word in there, a word with,

everyday word.

Nothing philosophical about that word, is there?

Here's the problem.

The Greeks had three distinct words, each one of which is translated by the English word

with.

So the Greek mind understood that there are different ways that you can be with

people. And those three words are the words sun, the word metta, and the word pras. You don't

have to remember them, but let me just illustrate them. The word Sun, you have heard in English this way.

How many have you ever been to a synagogue?

How many have you ever seen a synthesis or know what a synthesis is or syncopated rhythm?

That prefix sin, which has come over into our language, comes from the Greek

Sun, which means with Synagogue. The synagogue was the place where people came together to be with

each other. All of us in this room right now are with each other in the sense of Sun. We're part of a group. We're part of a

multitude. That's one way of being with someone. Then the second way in which one could be with

somebody is the way the Greek used the term metta. And that means to be alongside of. When my wife

and I walked down the street, hand in hand, and shoulder

to shoulder, she is with me. That's meta. But the Greeks had a third way of speaking about

withness. And for that, they used the little word in Greek called pros.

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