In pondering his beloved Juliet, Romeo wonders “What’s in a
name?” But you know a person doesn’t have to have an appreciation for
Shakespeare to understand and appreciate the question. “What’s in a name?”
What comes to mind, what happens to us when a certain name comes to
mind—that of a first love, a long lost friend, or maybe a husband, a parent,
even a child separated from us by death? Still other names can stir up a
completely different set of emotions—that of the schoolyard bully, of that
science teacher who always seemed to have it in for us, of the crooked
politician that we’re just sure is on the take! No matter what the name,
all it takes is to speak, to hear it and our memories, our hearts will do
the rest. Something I read the other day suggested that “in a name is a
person, a personality, a history, a world. The pronouncing of the name is
not merely a shorthand way of calling memories of that person’s presence to
mind, it is to make that person present, here, in the most explicit of
ways.”
So how about Jesus, the name above all names? At the very end
of the familiar Christmas story, St. Luke reports that “after eight days had
passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the
name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Now that all
the Holiday reveling and New Year’s partying has ended, it’s time to get
back into routine, everyday living once again. But before we do there’s one
last chance for us to ponder the meaning of the one born among us, the one
whose name is “Jesus”.
Though unique to each of us, we’ve all been given one thing in
common, a name—Edna, Carter, Don, Brian, anyone else? Max and Luke had
their birthdays this past week which. Over the past few days, we took some
time to remember “way back when” fourteen and then again twelve years ago
when each of them arrived kicking and screaming into the world to receive
not only that jolting first breathe of air but a name that from that moment
on would distinguish them from all others in the world!
I also think of some dear friend of ours, Dean
and Patsy who a couple of years ago went through quite an ordeal to adopt a
beautiful little one year old girl whom they named Serina. Now the decision
to change her name from the one her birth mother had given her wasn’t an
easy one. Little Serina is a bright child so even at one year of age they
were concerned that it could be very confusing for her. With some
apprehension, they filed the papers in court to have her name changed and
now two years later, I’m not sure I can even remember her other name. She
is and will forever be our beautiful, energetic, bright Serina.
We’re told that Jesus was given a name too and
in that sense he’s just like the rest of us. It may not have one that Mary
and Joseph picked out, or that had been passed down through the family or
that they picked out of one of those little books you buy at the HEB check
out stand, but it was given none the less, given by an angel even before he
was conceived, a name that identifies and distinguishes him from others.
Still there’s something special about His name, a name that
doesn’t only serve to identify and distinguish, but the name “above every
name”, “the name by which every knee should bend in heaven and on under the
earth.” Jesus is the name given to each of us in baptism, the name written
upon our hearts and marks us as God’s own forever, the name that will never
be taken from us even in death. So, we live and have our being in the name
of Jesus.
Now maybe that strikes us as a little too religious sounding for
our tastes. It might be okay for holy-roller, fundamentalist types but not
for reasonable, enlightened people like us. It’s like Mr. Parker, my junior
high school band director used to say to me whenever he sensed some sort of
antics taking shape in the clarinet section. Pointing his baton right at
me, he would say, “Peterson, there’s a time and place for everything and
THIS is not it!” So it is with Jesus—certainly there’s a time and place for
Him, but for goodness sakes, not always. I mean what would they think?
What would they say about us? Life these days is lived from compartment to
compartment and God forbid that they should ever meet! So, we have a set of
different hats, one for work or school, one for home, one for wearing around
town and still another for church and Jesus on Sundays.
The trouble is though, in the same way that
Jesus himself cannot be contained or kept in a compartment, neither will His
name. We live and breathe in the name of the one who died for our sins, who
rose from the dead that we might have life in him for all eternity. From
the rising of the sun to its setting and through the dark night, the name of
Jesus is an ever constant presence in our hearts. In this way Jesus sets us
free to give our own lives as an offering of thanks so that others may see
and know the one called Jesus. And the name Jesus is not something we hold
on for ourselves like some holy trump card but becomes the basis of our
authority. In the name of Jesus we bear witness love that has no end.
Years ago, I remember playing cops and robbers
with my brother and cousin. We’d load up our toy cap guns and dress the
part—the cops in my Dad’s old Air Force dress uniforms and caps and the
robbers with a red bandanna tied so that the nose and mouth were covered up,
like cattle rustlers in some old TV western. Once everyone was ready, the
chase would ensue, from the backyard to the front and into the park adjacent
to our house where one of us who’d probably watched too many cheesy westerns
or police dramas would yell out, “Stop, in the name of the Law.” With those
words everyone would stand for a moment or two as if frozen in time before a
roaring cap gun battle erupted there on the soccer field. I suppose it’s
with good reason that we don’t encourage kids to play like that anymore, but
clearly, even way back when we kids recognized that to speak “in the name
of” something or someone carried with it a sense of power and authority
beyond ourselves. So, whatever power and authority we as followers of Jesus
have in this world, it’s in His name!
When the reporter came to talk with me on
Wednesday about the immigration bill we sat right where you are this
morning. Unaccustomed as I am to fielding questions from TV reporters, I
have to say it was all just a little unnerving. The night before and all
that morning, I tried to anticipate the kinds of questions he might ask me.
I figured he’d want to know something about my motivations for “going
public”. So, I spent some time thinking about relevant passages of
scripture. I pulled my thirty pound
Strong’s
Concordance* off the shelf and found a couple of really nice
ones about welcoming strangers and outcasts. The one where Jesus says, “I
was a stranger and you welcomed me” is an especially good one, I thought. I
also tried to come up with some sort of well oiled theological explanation.
I cracked open my old
Systematic Theology* books. But when the
question finally came, the best I can tell is that I was moved by something,
maybe someone else. I suppose it had to do with the way the question was
posed, I’m not altogether sure. “Why is this issue so important to you and
your congregation?” He asked. I thought for a moment and suddenly
recalling the words of our mission statement I said something like this.
“It seems to me that it all comes down to the matter of hospitality. As
God’s people in this place, its part and parcel to our calling to proclaim
God’s love as we welcome all people in Christ’s name.” Thank
goodness for congregational mission statements, I say!
So, here we are on New Year’s Day, 2006
gathered together in the name of Jesus, a time to give thanks for blessings
of the past year, a time to look ahead to what God may have in store for us,
a time to pray that God would continue to bless us so that in the coming
year we may continue to live “in his name.” Our selves, our time and our
possession, all that we have, all that we are, we offer to God, that the
name of Jesus may ring loud and clear, for all the world to hear. In Jesus’
name, Amen.
