Letter writing is quickly becoming a lost art. Ask yourself when was the last time a letter was delivered to me from a friend or family member that was handwritten and signed? In today's world we have an email system that will replace that and it makes our trips to the mail box very mundane reserved only for junk mail and bills.
Email is awesome though and it gets our message to our friends instantly however the personal touch can be lost how we end emails can be ttyl, lol, or simply later. I think today we expect we can hear back so quickly that emails almost are more like quick conversations so little is paid to how we end them sometimes. I think many times when you read letters through out history there is an ending that sometimes you never knew how long it would be again before you heard back from that person so endings of letters were not just ttyl.
When I write I love to utilize words and I have favorites, not only do I love words but words have the power to sway an opinion, change a heart, move a soul and save a life. One of my favorite words is sincerely, there are debates about its origins but many believe it is from 2 latin words sine meaning 'without' and cera meaning 'wax'. During the Republic of Rome craftsmen who would either be slaves or foreigners in the Roman Empire and worked with marble would cover imperfections with wax much like wood scratches are covered today. One other use involving wax was that cement workers would sometimes do the same thing utilizing some wax since it was less expensive than cement. When the wax melted bricks would shift and this would have sometimes fatal consequences so the term sine cera meaning genuine without imperfection or without wax came into being.
One of my favorite verses in the bible is also the ending of a letter, it is also a "Sincerely" you don't hear it quoted alot as a favorite because of this. Many times the last verse of Jude is looked over because it is quite simply the ending of a letter but if you take just this verse you can see it is totally without wax:
Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. Jude 1:24
If you read that just as Jude ends his letter it ends the letter with three great promises for us, He is giving all Glory to God because He is 1) able to keep us from falling, 2) will bring us with joy into his presence 3) present us without a single fault.
He is able to keep us from falling, he knows where we are each day whether we are facing temptation or just falling in weakness He is our strength. Through Christ we are able to be in the presence of God, through His son you are able to reach God. Through Christ you are without a single fault for all of our faults all of mine are gone because I have been made whole and washed through His sacrifice, He loves us He sincerely loves us.
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