He is here and can be known
Preacher: Tim Jenkins
Passage: Luke 2:15-21; Philippians 2:5-11
In March of 2016, the National Environment Research Council, a British governmental agency, decided they would do something a little fun. They were in the process of developing and building a $287 million dollar polar research ship, and had put together a short list of potential names: Shackleton, Endeavour, Falcon. The name of a ship doesn’t affect its function, and so the NERC saw a great opportunity to let the public get involved in choosing the final name. Thus, an online poll went up, Shackleton, Endeavour, Falcon, and the like, could be voted on by the general public. Poll would last for a month, the name with the top votes would be the winner. Simple as that. And then…
Well, you see, the thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that this poll was not just voting on the NERC’s short list of names, but one could also submit names to the list to be voted on. And that’s exactly what James Hand, a PR professional and former BBC employee, did, and the name he submitted really seemed to resonate with people. In no time at all, his suggestion shot to the top of the poll, and when the voting ended in April of 2016, his suggestion was #1. That name: Boaty McBoatface — That’s right, the public had made their #1 choice for a $287 million dollar research ship Boaty McBoatface.
Today is a feast day in the church, one that only occurs on New Year’s Day and does not move: The Feast of The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the day Joseph gave the son of Mary the name Jesus.
God, who can see into the hearts of men, left little to chance when it came to Jesus’ name, no Christy McChrist face here. We read in Matthew and Luke that the angel Gabriel emphasized first to Mary and then to Joseph that the baby boy would be named Jesus, and things tend to get done when angels are involved. So, on the eighth day of his life, as our Gospel reading today tells us, the baby was circumcised and officially given the name Jesus, just like the angel had told them to do.
But what’s so special about the name Jesus that we have a feast day about it?
It’s not a unique name, at least not in first century Israel. The name Jesus was actually pretty common; it was a popular name, even.
The pronunciation Jesus comes to us from the Greek, Ἰησοῦς. In Aramiac, which is what Jesus spoke, the name was pronounced something like Yeshua, which, if you are listening closely, kind of sounds like Joshua. And that’s because they are kind of the same name. Lots of people had been named Yeshua over the years, and lots of people were named Yeshua when Jesus was born. It is a name that means something along the lines of God is salvation, or maybe even God saves.
So, God is proclaiming exactly what he is doing when he chooses the name Jesus.
Many of you here might have a similar story of aspirational naming. We named our second son Caius, which is rejoice in Latin, hoping that he would be a happy baby. (It more or less worked.) But Jesus is more than aspirational. He is the incarnation of God in man, and as God and man he reconciles all of creation with its creator, including you and me.
Paul writes in Philippians that Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness,” and “he humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross.” It is the action of this obedience that reconciles us to God and makes his name above every name. Through his death, resurrection, and ascension we are saved.
And yet, I think there is still something more about the name we must acknowledge.
Earlier when I said Yeshua means God saves or God is salvation, I was doing a bit of translating. There are different words for God in Hebrew, some of which mean simply God or Lord, but others that are more personal and intimate. In fact, there is a name of God that was never written out, only ever used as an abbreviation, YHWH, we pronounce that Yahweh. And it was only ever abbreviated, because it was a name too holy for sinful lips to speak. This is a key aspect of who God was in the OT. He was too holy to be in our presence. We could not look upon him, we could not speak his true name, we could not be in his presence, without the risk of death. We were separated from God by our sinfulness.
And yet, in Jesus we have a God who is literally in our midst. It is at the name of Jesus that “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” because the name of Jesus belongs to a God not far away but someone who was literally near, a name and a face that could be known.
The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ is about the God who drew near. The God whose head Mary smelled as an infant, the God who walked the streets of Israel, the God whose hands touched people, whose voice called people to follow him. His blood was spilled here, both at his circumcision and also at his death. This God was here and was known.
And he is still here.
He is with us in the bread and the wine we will share today. And, he is with us as we care for those in our community. He is with us when we comfort the mourning who have lost someone. He is with us when we laugh and spend time together.
He is here and can be known.
When I ask myself, “why does it matter that we celebrate the name of Jesus,” this is ultimately the answer. God’s salvific work was not from afar but up close. It is down and in the dirt. It has a face and a name. To know and be known by God is available to us, and it is proclaimed in the name of Jesus.
In a letter to the Romans (12:2), Paul writes, “be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” and today I exhort you to do the same. How we think about God and how God works makes a difference in how we encounter our faith. If you are not open to miracles, it will be hard for you to see miracles. If you feel like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, it will be hard to feel like God hears them. And If you only understand God as far away, it will be hard to sense him near.
Today, both the first day of the year, and the day when Christ was named Jesus, today is a great day to examine where in your faith you can make a change that will open up more of your life to the presence of Jesus.
Pursue Jesus this year: to learn his voice; to see his face. To draw closer. This is our response to Jesus having a name, to being here, to being able to be known. We should not live our lives as though God is at the end of a trillion mile telephone line that we send prayers over at night, unknowable and inscrutable, but instead we should see God here in our midst.
We see him in: The hands of Jesus wrapped around a bag of produce being loaded into a person’s car in our parking lot; the Holy Spirit’s voice in conversations at Discovery Team, Supergroup, and Bible Study; the singing of the throne room of God the Father as we gather in worship.
Friends, let the name of Jesus remind you that God is near, and he is available to you. This year, draw closer to Jesus Christ Our Lord. He is here and can be known to you.
“To the glory of God the Father.” Amen.
