What’s in a Name?

A Sermon preached on the Feast of the Holy Name, January 1^st 2017 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Numbers 6:22-27, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 2:15-21

Happy New Year and Happy Holy Name Day! We don’t get to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name very often, as it is classed as one of the few Holy Days that take precedence of a Sunday but are not transferred to a Sunday, unlike All Saints or Epiphany, which we are celebrating on Sunday, 8^th January this year.

So, what is it, and why now? Well the answer to both questions is in the Gospel reading (Luke 2:21). At the very end, we heard that “after eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” And today, eight days have passed since Christmas Day. As you also heard, we should be remembering two things today – Jesus’ circumcision and his naming. In fact, the feast used to be called the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. Most of the Western churches have dropped or changed that name – for example since 1960, today is for the Roman Catholics the “Solemnity of Mary the Holy Mother of God,” for the Episcopal Church since 1979 the Feast of the Holy Name, and in the Church of England’s Common Worship it is The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus Christ: a true English compromise. The Eastern and Orthodox churches on the other hand have kept the old name and they still celebrate it in a big way. What is important about Jesus’ circumcision is that the event reminds us that he and his family were Jews and observant and devout ones too.  It is also a sign that Jesus was fully human.

But the feast we celebrate today is the Holy Name, so let us focus on his name and on its meaning for us. In ancient times, people believed that names had real power. In our first reading from Numbers, God’s name is identified as a source of protection and blessing: “So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:27) To this day, Jews will not pronounce their name for God – Yahweh or Jehovah. In a Hebrew Bible, we just see the so-called Tetragrammaton, the four letters YHWH. When spoken another word is substituted, often Adonai, or Lord. No human should be able to call God by God’s name; no human can have that power or authority, God is too great. We see echoes of this at the beginning of John’s Gospel: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” (John 1:18) We know God through the Son, and we need not fear to speak his name.

We should really read Matthew today, not Luke. Matthew pays much more attention to Jesus’ name and its theological implications than to the actual birth:

“An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’” (Matthew 1:20-23)

We heard Matthew mention two names: Jesus and Emmanuel.

Jesus is in Hebrew Joshua, in Aramaic, Jesus’ language, Yeshua, in Greek Iesous. It is actually quite a common name, just like Joseph, which is why we should not get worried whenever a sarcophagus or stone coffin inscribed “Jesus son of Joseph” is found. It means either YHWH saves, or YHWH is salvation, or YHWH is my help. In Jesus’ case however, the angel tells Joseph, not as a pious wish, but as a promise. “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” means that Jesus is the source of salvation, that Jesus is God. The other name for Jesus mentioned in this passage, Emmanuel, is also a promise. El is another word for God, and Immanu means with us. The whole promise of Christmas is summed up in these two names. God is with us, God becomes human to save us from our sins, in particular from our tendency to self-isolation and destruction.

Jesus’ names, and what they stand for, are a cause for joy and celebration, but also for praise and reverence. Many of the titles we associate with Jesus, the Christ or Messiah, Lord, Master, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, King, or Teacher focus on his exalted position, his appointment, his equality with God. Jesus is to be worshipped and venerated, “in St. Paul’s words (Philippians 2:10-11): “At at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Right now, so-called “strong leaders” are all the rage: exuding power, arrogant, aggressive, name-calling, and focused on their own, local, particular interests. In and just before Jesus’ time they existed too, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, considered divine and worthy of worship because of their success and might. But Paul is not saying that Jesus is worthy of reverence because of his power, because he is in the form of God. Jesus is to be praised and worshiped because he abandoned his rights for the sake of the world, for our sake. Jesus is exalted, lifted up, precisely because he came down, took on human form, humbled himself and died for us on a cross. We bend our knee and confess his name because of his sacrifice, not because of his power or wealth, or ability to make us powerful or wealthy. Jesus is Lord because he is, to use another one of his titles, the Lamb of God.

We no longer believe that names have magical powers over us, or that just invoking Jesus’ name can help us. That is not why we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name. Instead, we celebrate what Jesus’ names stand for: God is with us and God (alone) is our salvation. We remember that at our Baptism we are marked as Christ's own forever, and that Christ’s name has been put on us, just as God’s name was put on the Israelites. We re-commit ourselves to follow Jesus and Jesus’ example of loving sacrificial service and to proclaim his name and all it stands for.  

Amen.