Christmas, 2017

John 1:1-18

I was named after my father. My name is Donald Joseph, and my Father's was John Donald. He in turn was named after his father, whose name was John Silas. We named our son Donald John and threw in the name Matthew as well giving him a choice about what he wanted to call himself. And it's interesting to find out why people were given the names they have. Some people spend a lot of energy drawing up names for their children. I had an Uncle and Aunt who named each of their five children with a name that began with M. I don't know why, maybe they just liked that letter better than the other 25. And I'm sure everyone knows someone whose first name seems to have been selected to go with the family name – Like the movie star Rip Torn. And what do we do with names? Many people make a conscious choice to be called something else; I know several people who have chosen to go by their middle name, and even when they sign their name the first name is remembered by a letter. Names are random sounds and at the same time they take on meaning from the person who is given the name. Names resonate with connections. After World War II, the rather common name “Adolph” became extremely rare for quite a while. And I suspect few babies, at least in liberal Massachusetts, will be named Donald for many years.

The gospel of Luke has the familiar story of the annunciation, in which Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a son and is to name him Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew an angel appears to Joseph and tells him the same thing, to name this child Jesus.

The name Yashwah was not unusual among the Hebrews. The successor of Moses, who actually led the Israelites into the promised land, had the same name – only we pronounce it Joshua. Other variations we meet in scripture include Jesse and Joses. But Jesus did not get his name from his parents, it came by way of angels directly from God, and God doesn't do anything frivolously; The Son he sent in to the world could have no other name.

Yashwah means “God saves”. I think we all would agree that this is an appropriate name, after all, we Christians believe that God became a human being to save us. But sometimes we ask, how does that happen? Fathers and doctors of the Church have come up with different ideas. They all seem to revolve around the idea that Jesus pays off a debt that we could never pay off, or that Jesus offers his life to his Father in place of our lives. Salvation seems to be a transaction. But I think the names of Jesus may suggest something different.

Another name for Jesus is found in the first part of the Gospel of John, where he is called “Word”.

A very unusual thing about human beings is that our minds are formed by words. The theologian Hans Urs Von Balthazar wrote: “After a Mother has smiled for a long time at her child, the child will begin to smile back; she has awakened love in its heart, and in awakening love in its heart, she awakes also recognition.” But of course the other thing a mother does is speak words to the child, who through those words begins to recognize that he is not alone, that he is loved, that he belongs. We know of situations where children were raised without words, and the result is that if they attempt to learn their language as teens or young adults they never achieve normal socialization, and in fact never become very fluent. To be without words is to be isolated, lonely and incapable of fully participating in our human society.

And maybe that's what Jesus as the Word is all about. We human beings, even when we have families, even when we have loving relationships, eventually realize that nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever; our assumptions are shaken to the core. I recently talked with a friend who had just had a heart attack. It was mild, he had stents placed, he was back to normal a few days later. But he was totally shaken; he said he had to re-evaluate everything, having had a personal brush with death. And he is a man of faith.

Jesus as the Word of God is like a mother's words that begin the process of bringing a baby into his full humanity; The Word of God tells us that we do not need to fear, there is meaning in the world, there is a plan for each of us. The Word of God calls us out beyond the fear, darkness, and chaos that prevents us from entering the world of self-expression, thought, and conscious love. The Word of God calls us into a relationship which is the end of being alone, being frightened, being at the mercy of the world, our own bodies, and other people.

When we respond to the Word that is part of what is meant by being saved; we've been made free from the limitations our human condition puts upon us, and from the ultimate limitation, which is death. Because the third name for Jesus is the name given by the prophet Isaiah, who said that a virgin would bear a child and his name would be called Emmanuel, God with us. And when we realize that God is with us, that he is closer to us than our own heart, that he will never withdraw his love, than we can say with Paul, “If God is with us, who can be against us?” and “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Jesus …..Jesus ….Jesus. When God names something, it becomes what God has named it. And there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

Go forth today breathing the name Jesus on this day we celebrate the birth of our Savior.