Abracadabra, hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo - the Reformers of the sixteenth century felt that the prayers used in church at the time, largely in Latin, were as meaningless as a magician's spell. Archbishop Cranmer set himself to create a prayer book in "a tongue understanded of the people". No more Latin (except in the universities, where people understood it) - and no more Greek or Hebrew either. No more hosannas, no more hallelujahs (though by some oversight sabaoth ("armies") was left in the Te Deum, and for lack of an English equivalent, cherubim and seraphim continued to praise God untranslated.)
One important Hebrew word survived. We end our prayers with it, rather than saying "Yes, indeed." The best English translation is "sure", in the sense of safe, reliable, honest, trustworthy - it can also mean faithful or loyal, and in most Semitic languages is the root word underlying "insurance". In Arabic, a mu'min ("one who Amens") is a believer, and Moslems and Christians alike may bid adieu fi amaan Illah - "in the protection of God".
In temple and synagogue, responding amen allowed participants to associate themselves with the thoughts expressed by the worship leader - sometimes in their enthusiasm they might even say "Amen and Amen", as at the end of Psalm 89. Paul in his letters often uses an Amen to underline his praise of God ("who is blessed for ever! Amen." (Rom. 1:25)), and we know from early Christian writers that the response was used in church worship from the earliest recorded times. And so we too can use it to show our assent to a prayer, a word of praise, a confession of sin, or even to a thought that strikes us in the sermon!
Amen was used in another way, too. Twenty-five times, John's Gospel records Jesus as beginning a statement: "Truly, truly,", usually continuing: "I say to you". The original Greek version does not translate "truly, truly". It keeps Jesus' original words, "amen, amen." Jesus' phrase was obviously so striking that the Gospel writer left it untranslated, and reading a modern version (for example, the New Revised Standard Version, which translates John 3:3 as "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,") sometimes stands in the way of recalling Jesus speaking, in this case to Nicodemus, and his way of emphasizing words which he felt were important.
And lastly, Jesus himself is called "the Amen" (Rev. 3:14). He is God's faithful and true witness. It was Jesus who asked Pilate, "What is truth?", and it was Jesus who declared, "I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) He is our Amen, our affirmation of the glory of God. Just as our Amen at the end of a prayer sums up our identification with its thoughts, so Jesus is God's Amen to creation, an affirmation that God's work was completed in him who is not only the baby in the manger, not only the convict on the cross, but the "the one who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). May we all say Amen to that!
HD