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St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
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The Naming of Jesus 2006
St. Andrew's Church
1 January 2006
Today we begin a new year and, of course today is the first day of the first month of the year, January. January gets its name from the God, Janus who was a Roman God who had two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. This God became the God of openings and closings and of beginnings and endings.
It is an appropriate time for us to look back at our past, and to also look forward to the future. And that, I think is what most of the characters in the Gospel story are doing. The Shepherds, having heard the wonderful news have rushed out into the village of Bethlehem, telling others what they had seen and heard and glorifying God for all of it. And yet, the very opening of the Gospel lesson says, "When the angels had left them and gone into heaven ...." In many ways that marks the end of the overtly heavenly visions. Those shepherds decide to go to take a look in the stable in Bethlehem, but they didn't see a young King sitting on a golden throne, they saw, rather, the poorest of children, lying in the feeding trough in the stable because there was no crib for him. Yet, the shepherds recognize that it is as the Angels had told them - it looks to be a scene of great humility, a birth which was humbler - less than ordinary, but the shepherds see the extraordinary in it.
Then the reading says that the shepherds "returned". The shepherds are going back to their previous existence - they are returning to their flock, they are returning to their way of life, yet as they do they praise and glorify God for all that they had seen and heard, and on their way they told others all about it. These shepherds were going back to their day to day existence, but they had been radically changed - they might still be shepherds, but they would never be the same. The Shepherds were looking forward to a new life.
Mary, too is properly experiencing January. She is looking back at all that she has witnessed and the Gospel says that "she treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." She was a reflective soul, was Mary, and I'm sure that she pondered on all of these events for the whole of her life. It would have helped to make sense of what was to come much later in life.
And then the story goes on to tell how this young family, a faithful Jewish family, in accordance with the Jewish custom, took their baby boy when he was eight days old and had him circumcised and gave him his name. That is why we celebrate this feast of the naming of Jesus on the first of January - it is the eighth day after the birth at Christmas. It is important to note that Mary and Joseph are following all of their religious customs. Their son was to remain a devout Jew for all of his life. It is in the naming ceremony on the eighth day, where a new baby would become a member of the holy people of God under God's covenant with the Hebrew people.
But the most important thing which they did that day was to give their son his name. At this naming ceremony Mary remembers her own conversation with the angel and she sticks by it. She gives him the name, Jesus.
So what's in a name, anyway? Well the answer is very much indeed. Many of us don't realize the importance of names. They used to be thought of as containing the power of the person named. The Hebrew people were forbidden to say the name of their God and so, everywhere in the Hebrew scriptures where it writes the name of God, which God gave to Moses, the scribes wrote instructions to say, "the Lord" or sometimes a Hebrew word which simply means, "the name." The Hebrew people knew that the name of God was so powerful that it was not to be used at all.
Naming is important in another way too. Naming our fears or naming our enemy, or our disease is a way for us to gain power over them. It is a way to face up to them, and to overcome them. It is no accident that in the popular Harry Potter books most of the characters are afraid to say the name of the enemy, Lord Voldemort. But those who do seem to have more courage and power over the dark lord.
Mary, as instructed, gave the name, Jesus, to her son. In Hebrew the name, Jesus, means "God is my salvation." The most amazing thing is that we have a name through which to know God. For centuries, God's name had been forbidden, and yet, in Jesus, we know a God who want to be not forbidden, but known. A God who is not distant, but who walked with us as one of us. A God whose name means salvation.
And what does that word salvation mean? There are all sorts of connotations that come with that word. The more fundamental of our Christian denominations think it means a particular date and time when one was almost magically "saved" by repeating a certain prayer formula. That's the type of meaning which is understood when someone says to you, "Have you been saved, brother? (or sister?)"
Yet, salvation is a whole lot deeper than that. The root of the word is about healing. If you think of the first syllable from salvation, "salve", is a healing ointment. Jesus' salvation is not a magical instant event, but it is a process which continues over our life. It is recognized by a moment, like a January moment when we can look forward to a new beginning: a journey of faith which might meander along, but which brings one to greater wholeness and health. Ultimately full salvation is being brought to the wholeness of being which cannot be fully experienced on this earth. Jesus' name says that this is what God will do for us.
And that leads me to our own names. Similarly to Jesus, we are named in a certain rite at our Church. At our own baptisms we are named and signed and adopted: belonging to God's own family. We become members of the body of Christ in the here and now. And whatever the name which we are given by our families, we are all given the name of Christian. We are called by our baptism to be Christ to those we meet, and also to recognize Christ in others. By living up to our name as Christian, we do the work of Christ in this world, in this time. And so our baptism is also a January moment. It is a time to look back at what we have been, and to look forward to transformed lives. We pray that the children we baptize today will live to the fullness of their name, and know themselves to belong to God and to be loved by God, for Jesus will, over the course of their lives, bring them to wholeness of being and blessing. Amen.
