A little excerpt from my sermon today entitled “Ebb and Flow, Come and Go, To and Fro”
“The sign of the fish is a symbol that Christians have used since the time of the birth of the church, during times of persecution and in times of celebration to represent the coming together of believers. When discretion and caution were required one person would draw an arc on the ground. If the other person was a believer as well, he would respond by drawing the reversed arc, resulting in the sign of the fish….the ichthus…..The letters of the word “ichthus” in English are translated as “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.” Believers declared their shared faith in a sovereign God through alternating marks of complimentary, reversed arcs that started apart but ended together.”
I love words, symbols, and word games. Here is a language lesson, compliments of dictionary.com: Backronym acrostic- an existing word turned into an acronym by creating an apt phrase whose initial letters match the word, as to help remember it or offer a theory of its origin. For example, rap has been said to be a backronym of “rhythm and poetry.” God, the originator of language, is pure genius!