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"Give our regards to every follower of Jesus you meet. Our friends here say hello... Receive and experience the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, deep, deep within yourselves." (Philippians 4:21-23, Message)
It happens at the workplace all too often: Some well-intentioned person with lots of responsibility on their shoulders comes up to you and starts right in: “I need you to….” And every fiber within you rises up and wants to say: “Well hey, hello to you as well, how’s your day going?” Then there's the email or text that just skips the introductions and pleasantries and gets right to the point. (Been there, done that too many times.)
But then there’s the email or text that begins with “Hey Steve” (with or without exclamation point). The former makes you feel like a means to solving someone’s problem; well, OK, fine, I get that. But there’s something powerful about the latter approach that, well, it just makes you feel…really good. And somehow, more willing to respond to the request more enthusiastically, no matter how full our plate happens to be at the moment.
It would be one thing if that all started and ended at work. But even in our Walk, it’s easy to get caught up in the same unfriendly web of skipping the preliminaries and introductions, checking off boxes, and getting on to the next thing. This can happen especially when turning to Scripture in hopes of finding that critical bit of advice or counsel or Heavenly insight through which we pray the Holy Spirit will meet us at our point of need.
The good news is that the Gospels know how to get to the point like nobody’s business. But because this Journey is about relationship and not just words and sentences, God seems to go out of His way, over and over and over again, to inspire the Gospel writers to begin with the power of "hello!" These are not just mere greetings to a bunch of people whose names we don’t really know; they are ancient family members who were on the same Journey that we are now. It's the timeless Word of God still speaking to stir us, encourage us, and prepare us to respond to the requests or counsel or instruction to come, invariably with a want to do so more eagerly, more wide-eyed, and more wide-eared.
Through these seemingly inconsequential greetings, God wants to speak a blessing into our crazy lives, if we will just pause to take it in, receive it as our own, and not give in to the cultural temptation to click “next” and rush to get to the next thing.
Go ahead, try it. Plug in your name and see if you feel the rush of encouragement….
“Hey Steve! …Grace and peace—that special sense of spiritual well-being—be multiplied to you in the true, intimate knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. For His divine power has bestowed on us absolutely everything necessary for a dynamic spiritual life and godliness, through true and personal knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”—2 Peter 1:2-3
The power of greeting, especially in scripture, is the best “hello” we can ever receive, because it originates from the One who made us and reminds us He brought us into this world for a purpose. Always, it is pleasant and refreshing to a thirsty soul….and a reminder of how we can worship with feet on in the day to day by cultivating the simple habit of saying “hello” to the people we encounter as they approach on the sidewalk or hallway or store aisle. Or in an email or text.
In our corner of God’s creation, it’s been said people don’t do that: You keep your head down, don’t talk to strangers, and mind your own business and get on to the next thing. But when you begin to break the rules, everything changes. Not everyone, but invariably, a simple “hello” to someone walking with their head down can cause them to look up (maybe in shock), and smile, or nod, or grunt, or say “hello” back.
Who knows what kind of simple blessing we’re speaking into someone’s crazy life, and the encouragement they get to keep putting one foot in front of the other? For sure, it is the simple Gospel at ground zero, breaking up hard soil and not much more. But it is still the heart of the simple Gospel, and one that we can all put on because:
“The power of hello means no one goes unnoticed, no one is invisible, that everyone we interact with bears the image of a beautiful God.”
—James Barnett, founder Clothe Your Neighbor as Yourself (cyny.org)
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