Gloria Dei

Am I right to presume you told each other your name?  We know each other by our names.

On the 8^th Day of his life, Jesus was given his name. So, on the rare occasion when New Year’s falls on a Sunday, the 8^th day of Christmas gives us a unique chance to focus on this otherwise lost holiday of the church year, the Name Day of Jesus.    

Of course, we know that Jesus was known by many names. The Scriptures call him Emmanuel, God with us.  They call him Son of Man, Son of David, Son of God.  He is known as Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ.  His friends call him Rabbi or Teacher.  Our opening hymn this morning includes the beautiful image of his mother whispering the name “Love” to her new baby boy.  Perhaps she did have pet names for the Christ child, as any mother would.

But on the 8^th day of his life, at his circumcision, according to good Jewish teaching, his parents named him Jesus. Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the name Joshua, meaning the Lord saves, or more simply, Savior.

Many of us like to know the significance of our name, or the reason it was chosen for us.

I had to look up the meaning of my name this week.  I had forgotten that “Lois” has a beautiful meaning, of “desired,” or “preferred,” although I’m not sure that had a lot to do with why my parents chose it.  Pastor Manz asked whether knowing that meaning encourages me to live into it somehow.  Does it make me hope to be preferred, or desired, to want to honor the name given to me?  I’m not sure I give it that much thought.

But my name is very much at the core of how I understand myself.  You could take a lot of things away from me, and I would still think of myself as Lois.  My name tells me who I am. Of course, there are some people who don’t like their names, who find them to be too bland or too old fashioned, too strange or too ostentatious.  They don’t like their name has been used by others, or what connotations it carries for other people. 

But the reason most of us use our names to introduce ourselves to others, is that most of us understand our name as shaping our identity somehow.  Our names have power over us.  Parents put a lot of time and consideration in naming their children, because we know it’s going to be one of the most important and lasting gifts we will bestow upon them.  Whether rich or poor, famous or plain, those who raise us have this unique and wonderful chance to give us our names. 

But I wonder…. Would the Christian story be any different if Mary and Joseph had chosen some other name for their first born?  Zechariah & Elizabeth stunned their friends and neighbors when they named their child John, rather than naming him for his father according to custom.  Why don’t we hear that Mary and Joseph’s friends were equally surprised to learn that their baby would not be called Joseph?  Had their tales of angelic dreams and visions been compelling enough to convince their family that this child would be named differently than custom dictated?

The name Jesus, or Joshua, was not that unique or uncommon in their society.  Jesus may have shared his name with others in his town or extended family.  Do you think Jesus himself drew any significance from being called that?  Did he live his childhood differently than he would have had he had some other name? Did the Saving-characteristics of his name help him understand and grow into his identity more fully?

Or is there a different way to look at his naming?  Might it be that the name of Jesus says more about us than it says about him?  Maybe our need for a Savior is greater than his need to be named anything at all. 

On the 8^th Day of Christmas, Jesus is given his name, but I suspect, we are given much more through that naming.  I suspect that the angel tells Mary and Joseph what to name their child not so that he will understand his destiny, but so that we can understand our own.

In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph is told to name the baby Jesus, because he will save his people.  According to Luke, the angels sing to the shepherds about their Savior who is born to them.  Jesus, our Savior is named, so that we can receive life through him.     

Jesus comes so that we can be saved for life eternal, but saved even now from everything that puts us in danger. Jesus comes to save us from hopelessness and fear, from regret and shame, from bitterness and resentment, injustice, isolation, ingratitude, and the scars of past wrongs or abuse.  Jesus comes to save, to rescue, to redeem us and make us God’s own children again. 

This is what makes the Name of Jesus a Christmas gift to us, not that Jesus’ name means savior, but that we are the ones who are saved.  Far better than eight maids a-milking or seven swans a-swimming, this is grace unbounded:  a Christmas gift beyond gifts, and it is in the nature of our God to give it to us.

Years before Mary and Joseph’s child was named Jesus,  the Lord spoke to Moses and told him to bless his brother Aaron and his sons with the wonderful words we heard in our reading from Numbers.  The blessing is one we still like to use sometimes as worship concludes, and like the whole season of Advent and Christmas, calls us to see blessing in God’s face shining upon us, to see peace as a gift from God’s radiance upon the earth.

But then we hear this lovely additional piece of information:  Aaron and Moses’ nephews are blessed so that “they shall put God’s name on the Israelites.”  Blessing comes to them as they name others as God’s own.

Could this be the blessing Jesus is given as well?  Jesus comes to the earth so that we all might be claimed as God’s own, to put God’s name on us.  Not just for the Israelites, but in fact for the whole world, Christ is born so that we might be adopted into the family of God.  We who have been baptized into Christ’s name bear the marks of God’s own saving name on our flesh.  Jesus is blessed by his name to save us as God’s children, and to put God’s own name on us.

The Shepherds seem to have understood.  They flew to the manger to see this child who had been called their Savior, and they left glorifying and praising God, making known to everyone what they had seen.  God’s countenance had shined on them, God’s radiant face had met theirs, blessing them and sending them into the world to share good news.     

They, like Aaron and his children, were empowered to see all the world as God’s own, to embrace the world as worthy of God’s own living presence within it. 

Could the same happen to us?  On this 8^th Day of Christmas, could the child be born to save us?  Could the one named Jesus be blessed to put God’s own name on each of us?  Could we leave this place glorifying and praising God for reconciling the world unto God’s self?  Could we in fact start envisioning the world as God’s own?

Now that would be a real New Year’s resolution!  It means we would be empowered to claim all of creation, all people, all relationships, all that is created good, and to put God’s name on it.

Let’s try this again. Go and introduce yourself to another, and as you do, remind the other that they belong to God.  Just like this.  I’ll tell you my name is Lois, and after I do, I want you to tell me, “Lois, you and the whole earth belong to God.”

Now go and share that news with others!

People of God!  We often use the phrase, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  But today we celebrate that we are the ones who come in Christ’s name!  Mark the whole New Year with this beautiful thought.  You and the whole earth belong to God.  A Savior, Christ Jesus, has been born, so that you can know yourself and all creation, to be loved and claimed by the God of all time and space.

Thanks be to God.  Amen

Texts:  Numbers 6:22-27;  Psalm 8;  Galatians 4:4-7;  Luke 2:15-21