Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Gabriel
By Ramone - December 14, 2006 (I think)
Gabriel was the angel who announced the birth of Christ (the Messiah) to just about everyone involved. He was a messenger, bringing the news of peace from God to mankind:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!" (Luke 2:14)
Christ came "to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the path of peace" (Luke 1:79) and was born to bring healing, reconciliation and life to its fullest.
"Jesus" was the news that Gabriel brought that day. Before Christ was born, from one generation after another, from one family to another, mankind had been hurting, killing and wounding each other with no end in sight. We had been at war with each other and within ourselves. But when Christ came and died, the curse was broken, and healing could begin working for all through Him, the Second Adam. Through His wounds there is healing, reconciliation for generations and families, and more things yet to come, welling up to the final end.
*****
"Gabriel" is also my brother's name, my father's name, and my late-grandfather's name. But having grown up with an older brother, well you know, you "draw a line" down the middle of the car backseat in order to protect your territory from his protruding limbs! If he liked Sci-Fi, I kind of had to not like Sci-Fi, etc. And his name... well, I never gave it much thought at all. But some year or two ago, I began realizing I'd never appreciated his name, and I wanted to change that. I asked God to help me see him (and his name) with love, respect and appreciation.
Then this year in November when Yoko & I were praying for & thinking of names for our boy (due in March 2007), I looked up the meaning on a website, and found that it was Hebrew for "Strong Man of God" (written in Japanese in the picture). At that time, we were sitting at "Mister Donut" looking through a book of Japanese characters for names, and we thought of naming him "Gabriel" in Japanese. I drew this sketch there:
The Japanese word for "strong" is "tsuyoi", but it's actually too strong of a character to use in a name. However, we found another character we could use that sounded the same, but that story will be for another picture someday... Suffice to say, we translated "Gabriel" and have happily passed on the name in Japanese to our son as Tsuyoshi. (^_^)
# posted by Ramone @ 7:50 PM 
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