Sermons from St
Faith's
What's in a Name?
Jackie
Parry, January 1st, 2017 - The Circumcision and
the Naming of Christ
“What’s in a name?”
Juliet asks Romeo in Shakespeare’s well known
play of love, conflict and
tragedy. “What’s
in a name? That which
we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Names are more than just labels. They are about
a person’s life and way of
being; often having a particular action or value
associated with it.
In some ways a name, or nickname, can capture
and expresses the essence of a person, revealing
qualities and characteristics
about their personality.
For example:
Tina twinkle-toes, Roger the Dodger, Father Christmas,
Saucy Sue, Dora the
Explorer, Eddie the Eagle.
A friend of
mine has a daughter called Abigail, but as a baby she
suffered dreadfully with
colic, and so he gave her the nickname ‘Abi-snail’,
because she left a trail of
vomit wherever she went.
(ugh, gross!)
There are even biblical nicknames:
Doubting Thomas, Jonah the
Moaner, Peter the Rock and of course, the Lord God, our
Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Sometimes names reveal experiences and
relationships, for
example, mummy, daddy, darling, love. When
my eldest son Edd, was a baby, our nickname for him was
Eddybear, which is
fairly self-explanatory, but his nickname wasn’t
something we just called him,
it was also expressing the relationship we have with
him, that of love and a
bond between a parent and child.
Names can identify and reveal our
personhood. That’s
why it sometimes hurts when someone
forgets our name. Names
can disclose who
we are, how we are, where we come from, where we are
going. We
can even see these genealogies in Holy
Scripture, especially in Genesis in the Old Testament
and in St Matthews
Gospel, in which Matthew explains and names the
genealogy of Jesus.
God uses names and name changes to
establish relationship,
identity, and belonging.
God invited
Adam to name the animals and then gave Adam dominion
over creation. Adam
named Eve because she came from his
side. Moses
was so named because he was
drawn from the water.
Abram and Sarai
were renamed Abraham and Sarah highlighting their new
relationship to God.
Saul’s life was transformed on the Damascus
Road, and he became Paul.
So we can see that names have more
significant meaning than
we realise. Jesus,
Yeshua in Hebrew,
means Salvation, ‘the Lord saves’.
Within the name is Jesus’s vocation, it is a
relationship to humanity,
and a desire of God.
The Christ means
the anointed one, the Messiah. This
description of the saviour is foretold in the Hebrew
Scriptures, and we also
read this in the Gospels where the angel says to Mary,
“you must call his name
Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Luke tells us that on the eighth day
after His birth, Mary
and Joseph took their newborn son to be circumcised as
was, and still is, the
requirement for Jewish males. It is during the
liturgy of circumcision
when the baby boy is named. That day, long ago in
ancient Palestine, the
Moyle, which is the specially trained Rabbi who performs
the ritual of
circumcision, would have said something like “Name this
child,” to which Mary
and Joseph will have responded, “Jesus.”
And there it was. Such a small,
simple act, but with
huge significance!
He was named Jesus as
it had been foretold by the Angel of the Lord, who had
come to Mary and told
her that she would have a son and would name him
Jesus. God had ordained
that this child would be known as God’s salvation,
deliverer, rescuer.
There is power in the name Jesus, but
there is something even
more powerful about giving that name to this child. After all,
Jesus was not just the
firstborn child of Joseph the carpenter and Mary of
Nazareth. He was the
incarnation of God; God amongst us; the God of all
Creation, made in human
form.
The world into which Jesus was born
knew only a God who was
so distant from the people, so apart, so other worldly,
that God’s name could
not even be spoken out loud. This was the same God who
spoke with Moses from a
burning bush and warned him not to look at God or else
Moses would die.
Elijah tried to glimpse this same God in gale force
winds, earthquake and fire,
but could only find God in the still, small voice.
This was the same God
about whom the prophet Ezra said the people could not
lift their faces
heavenward, because they were not worthy to
be seen by God. No
wonder the coming ministry of this little child would be
such a challenge, and
such a threat, to Jewish authorities.
Jesus – God’s salvation – brought not
only a name to God, but
a face as well. Suddenly people could not only
speak about God, they
could speak to God and could see God’s face as they did
so.
So, what does the name Jesus mean to
you? How do
we use that name? Do
we use it with reverence and awe, for as
the Scripture tells us, “At the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow…”
(Philippians 2:10a), or do we pass it to one side as
simply a name, or for
some, as an expletive?
Today, January 1, the world is
concerned about the New Year
with its resolutions, football, diets, New Year sales. The Church,
however, is focused on a name,
Jesus. It
is the name that reveals God’s
life and purpose, claims us as God’s people, and changes
our lives.
A monk of the Eastern Church said
this:
“We say ‘Jesus’ and we rest in a
plenitude and totality that
can no longer be taken from us. The name
of Jesus then becomes a bearer of the whole Christ. It brings us
into His total presence.
In this presence are found all the
realities towards which
the name has served as a means of approach: salvation
and pardon, the
Incarnation and the Transfiguration, the Church and the
Eucharist, the Father and
the Spirit.
All things then appear to us “gathered
together in Christ
Jesus.” (Eph.1:10)
We begin another new year very
conscious of what may have
gone wrong in the past year; but also conscious of the
opportunities and
potential ahead of us.
Perhaps one of
our new year’s resolutions should not be about diets or
quitting smoking, but
should be to remember the true meaning of the name
Jesus? Taking
that name into every circumstance of
our life, into every relationship we have, into
everything we do, to all whom
we meet. Letting
it fill our every
thought, echo through our every word, occupy our heart,
guide and direct our
every step.
I love the words of today’s Collect:
“Almighty God, whose blessed Son was
circumcised in obedience
to the law for our sake and given the name that is above
every name: give us
grace faithfully to bear his Name, to worship him in the
freedom of the Spirit,
and to proclaim him as the Saviour of the world; who is
alive and reigns with
you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
for ever. Amen”
The name Jesus literally means
“Salvation”, God is with us;
so whatever 2017 brings, remember that God is always
present, giving us
strength, guidance and love.
And so, in Jesus’ name, may we all go
in peace to love and
serve the Lord.
Amen
