What’s in a name?
Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Name, year C
Bible reading: Luke 2.15-21
My late Grandmother Eunice Pietsch will be known to a number of you as a member of this parish before her death four years ago. Indeed you may have known her more intimately than I did – I only moved to Adelaide after she passed away. But perhaps you aren’t familiar with the story of how she came to be called Eunice.
At her birth – so the story goes – her parents agreed on the name Marie Constance, a fairly pleasant, innocuous sort of a name – indeed it was her mother’s own name. But her father, a pastor of not a little conviction and inspiration, had other ideas. When the moment of her baptism at St John’s Lutheran Church in Minyip arrived, Pastor Darsow – who was something of a Greek scholar and therefore fond of Biblical Greek names – felt a surge of inspiration for his new daughter.
Dismissing the name Marie, instead he found himself proclaiming the words: ‘I baptise you Eunice Darsow, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’, inspiration failing to suggest a second name. My poor great grandmother could only look on with perplexity and resignation, and the name ‘Marie’ was shelved until a later daughter arrived. Perhaps she suggested someone else do the baptism next time.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, a feast with its origins in the Gospel reading we just heard from Luke. We heard how Mary and Joseph waited the customary time of eight days before circumcising Jesus, and giving him his name. Mary, who was evidently more obedient than my great grandfather, stuck with the prior arrangement and called him Jesus – the name that the angel Gabriel had given to her while Jesus was still in the womb.
Why the name ‘Jesus’? You might ask, and this is a good question, and one that the Church has delved into in some depth over the years. Matthew’s Gospel in particular stresses the importance of the particular name ‘Jesus’ when Gabriel announces that Mary and Joseph ‘shall call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’ (1.21). You see the name Jesus signifies that he will save people from their sins because it comes from a longer Hebrew word, which means ‘he saves’ or perhaps ‘the Lord saves’. And so from the very beginning, Jesus’ identity – by virtue of his very name – is as a Saviour of his people.
But why do we really place such importance on names? After all, what’s in a name? This is what Juliet famously asked in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Looking out of her balcony window, she asks: ‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?’
Now the first time I heard this I thought it meant that Juliet was wondering where Romeo was, and wishing that he was there with her. But of course this is incorrect. ‘Wherefore’ does not mean ‘where’ but rather ‘why’. As the feud between their families was preventing their union, Juliet bemoans ‘Why are you Romeo?’ Why must you have this name? Her following soliloquy desperately suggests that they simply dismiss their names and so dismiss the identity that is intimately tied up with their names and start again, together. But of course the play attests to the impossibility of this feat – of dismissing one’s name.
This is because our name is intimately connected to our identity, just as Jesus’ name was inseparable with his identity.
This comes through strongly in the Greek language where the word ‘name’ also means ‘person’. So, for instance, in Acts chapter 1, we hear that 120 persons – or literally 120 names – were gathered to hear St Peter speak. Because a name is not just a title – like soldier or accountant or even Redeemer – but a ticket to your identity, to your very personhood, your existence.
This is why there is something amiss with the modern trend to call upon God using titles such as ‘Creator’. In one sense it is understandable and even laudable – after all our world needs to hear it proclaimed that God has created the world and each one of us, not as a random accident but as an intentional, loving act. However ‘Creator’ is not a name but a title. Indeed it is a title that people all over the world have given to all sorts of gods.
Anyone in the world can call upon a generic ‘Creator’ but it is our specific and unique privilege as baptised Christians, to call upon God using not a title but his actual name, Father, Son, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. You see Jesus didn’t come to earth just so we could call out to the ‘Creator’ – people could already do that. No, Jesus came in order to adopt us as God’s own children. So we could move from being mere creatures to being sons and daughters of God, crying out ‘Abba, Father’, with the Spirit of his Son in our hearts.
You see perhaps the greatest gift of God to you is His name. His name is our gift because it gives access to His very self, His very identity. His name was revealed first to Moses, but then to us through Christ as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as Jesus Christ. And so by using his name, by calling on his name, by living in his name, we are living in the very identity of God, his very being, which is love. Through this specific name, the name into which you were baptised, you can claim all of the divine promises and even enter the heavenly court and bring your requests and needs before the Father himself.
The Bible paints a very useful picture to show this.
In the religious systems that neighboured Israel, people would set up idols, pictures of gods and prostrate before them. Now, they didn’t think that that carved piece of stone or gold was actually a god, but rather that the idol was the god’s window into the world, the god’s face – a way in which the god could be reached, and could be talked to. In the Scriptures we can see with Israel that the name of God takes the place of idols in other religions. While pagans thought they were accessing a god through an idol, we know that the way to access God is through his particular name. While pagans built temples to house their idols, we build churches to house the name of the Lord. While pagans carried around idols in their jewellery, we in a very real sense carry around the name of God. While pagans gathered around their idols, we gather around the name of the Lord. Our service begins with the pronouncement of his name, and ends with its bestowal upon us in the blessing.
And so our Divine Service is bookended with the holy name of God.
But how do we know that we carry around God’s name? How do we – the 100 of us gathered here – know that we can access the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? How do you know that you carry this new identity?
Well Jesus wasn’t given his name on an arbitrary date, but on the day of his circumcision; indeed the two events are inseparable. And so in much the same way our own names and our baptisms are inseparable. Take my grandmother Eunice. One might think that her mother could have made a case for reverting to the name ‘Marie’ – after all, that was what they’d agreed on, and what they’d no doubt begun calling her. But of course, we know that this could not happen.
At baptism a name was not merely announced – as a piece of information – but given, bestowed, in an irrevocable way. And so we all have our Christian name, or our christening name – the name given to us at our baptism. So also, this is why converts to the faith have traditionally taken on a new name at their baptism. Because whether we are baptised as infants or adults, we take on a new identity, and so a new name. And so our new name bears witness to the fact that we bear God’s name.
Baptism – which St Paul called the ‘circumcision of Christ’ – is where we gain our Christian name, our new identity, just as Christ received his name at his circumcision – on the 8th day of his life.
Today’s feast day falls on New Year’s Day only by a happy coincidence. The feast is set for today because it is 8 days after Christmas and Jesus was circumcised and named 8 days after his birth, according to the Lord’s command. But it being a coincidence doesn’t take away the deep significance of this day. You see the eighth day has always held deep significance for Christians. The eighth day is always the same day of the week as the first – so Christmas is always the same day of the week as New Year’s Day. And so the eighth day stands as a repeat, a recurrence, or even better, a re-birth.
This is why circumcisions were performed on the 8th day. While God took 7 days to create the world, the eighth day is the beginning of the new time. Of course Jesus also rose from the dead on the eighth day – the day after the Sabbath – and so we too meet every Sunday which is not only the first day of the week but also the eighth day, if you like. A day that is the beginning of a new age, a day of resurrection and new life.
And so it’s very appropriate that we celebrate this eighth day of Jesus’ life on the first day of our New Year. Just as on the eighth day Jesus was circumcised, given his name and so also given his identity, so too we can begin this year in the name of Jesus and of the Triune God and remember our identity in light of this holy name.
We can remember, by making a resolution this year to live in the name of God. So not only is the divine service bracketed by the name of God, but also our daily lives. This is why Luther suggests we all rise in the morning, then make the sign of the cross and say ‘In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.’ Before praying the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, which both proclaim and call upon God’s name. Similarly at night time when you go to bed, make the sign of the cross and say ‘In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.’ By doing this, you observe God’s commandment to call upon his name and so live your life connected to God, as he is connected to you.
For just as you know God’s name, he knows yours. Just as his name was given to you at baptism, your name was given to him. Not because he needs it, or gets anything from it, but so he can call you and bless you. As God proclaims to you through the prophet Isaiah: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine’ (43.1). And as Jesus himself – Jesus the one who saves – says to his followers, ‘rejoice that your names are written in heaven!’ (Luke 10.20).
And so we are people who bear the name Jesus – the name that is above every name. We carry his name wherever we go, and so carry the Father, Son and Holy Spirit wherever we go. As we began our new life, so we continue in the name of Christ. Amen.
And may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.