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The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Years A,B,C

  • Numbers 6: 22-27

Embedded in this amended and expanded account of God’s people wandering in the wilderness for forty years in the book of Numbers is a priestly blessing, which has become iconic in synagogue and church.  Its origin is from the Lord to Moses through whom it extends to “Aaron and his sons.”  It affirms God’s favor, generosity, grace and peace.  Its pronouncement is assurance that ‘”..my name [is] on the Israelites and I will bless them,” says the lord.

  • Psalm 8

Inspired by creation, the psalmist “sees” the moon and stars, the creatures of the earth and sea as well as humankind as God’s work.  All creatures bear God’s “name in all the earth.”

  • Galatians 4: 4-7

Responding to troubles in churches in Galatia, Paul restates his understanding of the meaning of Jesus Christ for Jews and for all.  Here he emphasizes that Jesus was “born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law,” which is necessary “so that we all might receive adoption as children.”  This status confers permission to call God “Abba! Father!” making each a “child” and an “heir.”

  • OR Philippians 2: 5-11

In what appears to be an extant hymn of the early church, which Paul incorporates in his letter to the church in Philippi, the supreme act of Christ Jesus is that he “emptied himself, taking the from of a slave [servant], being born in human likeness.”  As a man, he accepted obedience and humility “to the point of death– even death on a cross.”  But God “highly exalted him…” and bestowed a “name that is above every name….”

  • Luke 2: 15-21

Raymond Brown replaces any sentimental notions of shepherds with his characterization as those “dishonest, outside the law.”  (The Birth of the Messiah, p. 420)  But Luke gives these shepherds the distinct honor of telling Mary and Joseph the message given to them by the angels: “To you this day there is born in the city of David a Savior who is Messiah and Lord.”  In character with her reaction when she was first told of the miraculous pregnancy and her honored role, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart….”  “Eight days” after the birth and visit of the shepherds, Mary and Joseph had the infant circumcised according to custom, when he was also given his name, being “called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

Names matter a lot in biblical texts.  Elaborate etymologies, name changes (Abram and Sara to Abraham and Sarah is the first of many name changes), eponymous naming that launches elaborate stories.  Even the experience of God evokes many different names in biblical texts– El, Yahweh, Lord, Creator, and from Paul complementing the gospels, “Abba! Father!”  Names are not incidental, they are integral features of biblical narratives.

Luke uses this tradition in his unique fashion.  Only Luke tells us that after the birth and awkward visit from the shepherds, Mary and Joseph dutifully set off to have the infant Jesus circumcised according to the law and given his name.  Although the selected name was given by “the angel before he was conceived in the womb,” the privilege of announcing the name and teaching it to this child as he grows is given to Mary and Joseph.  John Caputo observes: “At circumcision the newborn of God is spoken to even before he can speak, addressed by words he cannot understand, commissioned in advance before uttering a word of his own….”  (The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion, p. 263)  

The Lord gives to Moses, who in turn passes it to Aaron and all future descendants, the privilege of naming God’s people in perpetuity, which is a name that God has given them.  The psalmist looks at the whole creation around him and “sees” God’s “name” everywhere he looks– the diversity and marvel of creatures on land and sea, other people, the majesty of the sky in day and at night– and immediately sets to telling in poetry what he has seen.  The faithful “look” at the story of Jesus, see a dazzling display of God’s love and, in a newly composed hymn, venerate a “name that is above every name.”  Dazzled by this story of love, Paul highlights the daring new name for God inaugurated by Jesus, “Abba!  Father!”  Telling and naming are human privileges and responsibilities, including opportunities to “name” God.  We realize that we are named– “Adopted”– by God, and to tell a marvelous love story.  Tell it!  Name it!

God’s child in Christ adopted– Christ my all–

What earth boasts were not lost cheaply,

rather

That forfeit the blessed name, by which I call

The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father?–

Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee–

Eternal Thou, and everlasting we

(from “My Baptismal Birth-Day”  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

Biblical texts provide many names to name God because human language must use all its power and nuances to aim at naming that which is above every name.  As the narratives in the gospels unfold, the name “Jesus” becomes imbued right from the very beginning with complex, multi-layered overtones of meaning which can at best allude to the claim that this was one human being who was born, lived and died and left a few followers and who, it also turns out, was the clear expression of God’s love, which gives God another name, “Abba,” and therefore us a new name, too: daughter and sons.  Names are given to us  and names identify relationships.

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