Sermon January 1, 2012

Luke 2:15-21

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. 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.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name which among other things means we do not read from the first Chapter of John’s Gospel like we do every other Sunday after Christmas.  In addition the Sunday after Christmas like the Sunday after Easter is also known as international assistant’s day, because it is always the Sunday when the Assistant Rector gives the sermon.  But as I have no assistant I must violate this most ancient of rules that was first established by the Apostle Paul in 58 AD when he had Timothy preach on the Sunday after Christmas, because Paul was relaxing at his timeshare on Crete. 

But back to The Feast of the Holy Name; the reason we celebrate this feast today is fairly obvious for as our scripture says this morning “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.”  And obviously today is eight days after Christmas so it would have been on this day that Jesus would have been circumcised and given the name Jesus.  He is called Jesus because when the Angel came to Mary he told her “you will name him Jesus.”  This is of course not the first time in scripture that God has told people what to name their children.  The Angel told Zechariah concerning John the Baptist “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.”  In the Old Testament God commands Abraham to name his son Isaac, which means laughter, because when God told Sarah that she was going to have a child in her old age she “laughed to herself.”  The name Jesus comes from Hebrew and means roughly “the lord is salvation.”  It is actually a shortening of the name Joshua.  And once you know the definition of Jesus and what his purpose was in coming to earth it is also fairly obvious why he got the name that he did.  For if God was sending his salvation to everyone, it would probably make sense that he would send someone named “The Lord is Salvation” to actually do the work. 

That being said I am not sure we are any closer to answering the question about why we celebrate this day.  Do we simply do it because we know that it happened and we can easily date it or is there more to it?  Well obviously if I am going to ask a question like that, you know that the answer is that there is more to it.  In some ways it is a little more difficult for us to understand because names in our day and age often are chosen for how they sound in combination with our last name or what celebrity is popular.  My dad was actually named by his sister because he was the last of seven children and it appears that my grandparents had simply grown tired of coming up with new names.  But names historically have been more then something you picked because it sounded nice.  Names actually were thought to contain something of the reality of the actual person that you were discussing.  It was not simply a way of identifying someone, but something of their essence was contained in the pronouncement of their name.  We see this exalted stature of names in the 10 Commandments when we are told not to take the Lord’s name in vain.  The idea being that in the name of God is something of the essence of God and if we debase his name with trivial things like saying, “Oh my God this is an awesome churro” we are lowering God himself.  But the use of a name is not simply something that we should avoid in cases of trivialities, but is also something to be embraced at the appropriate times.  When we end our prayers by saying “in Christ name we pray.”  We are doing more than telling Jesus hello, we are invoking the power of Jesus that is linked to the power of the name of Jesus.  We are tying up our prayers in the power of Christ and the means by which we do this is the invocation of his name.  The naming of Jesus then is more than simply a formality, for in the name of Jesus there is something of Jesus himself.     

Because of a happy coincidence we actually have a rather prominent display of the name of Jesus today in Church.   Since the liturgical color is white our frontal happens to contain the traditional monogram of the name of Jesus.  You may have seen it before.  It is the letters IHS.  Which of course begs the question if Jesus is named Jesus how does IHS in any way relate to his name.  Well it is actually a little difficult to connect the dots, but I will give it a quick try.  In Greek the name of Jesus is spelled Iota, Eta, Sigma, Omicron, Upsilon, Sigma.  The first letter Iota looks like an I does in our alphabet while the second letter Eta looks like an H.  That is how you get the I and H, they are the first two letters in the Greek spelling of Jesus.  But what about the S?  Well the last letter in Greek is of course a Sigma which does not look like an S, but rather looks like well a Sigma (kind of a sideways M).  In Latin however as in English the last letter of Jesus is of course an S.  So what we have if you can follow this is the first and second letters of the name of Jesus as found in the Greek and the last letter as found in Latin.  And finally if that is not confusing enough I should add that in Greek the letter Iota when it is the first letter in a word is not pronounced like our I but rather like a Y.  So it would be pronounced more like “Yesus.”  As to why we use a J and not a Y I will simply say blame the Germans.      

Now that we are done with that bunny trail I would like to return to the name of Jesus and why we remember it.  The 12^th century French Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, was one of the great champions and lovers of the name of Jesus and wrote about it in some of the most beautiful ways.  So I would like to end with a rather lengthy quote from him which does far more justice to the beauty and power of the name of Jesus than I will ever be able to produce.  It reads: 

“The sweet Name of Jesus produces in us holy thoughts, fills the soul with noble sentiments, strengthens virtue, begets good works, and nourishes pure affections. All spiritual food leaves the soul dry, if it contain not that penetrating oil, the Name Jesus. When you take your pen, write the Name Jesus: if you write books, let the Name of Jesus be contained in them, else they will possess no charm or attraction for me; you may speak, or you may reply, but if the Name of Jesus sounds not from your lips, you are without unction and without charm. Jesus is honey in our mouth, light in our eyes, a flame in our heart. This name is the cure for all diseases of the soul. Are you troubled? Think but of Jesus, speak but the Name of Jesus, the clouds disperse, and peace descends anew from heaven. Have you fallen into sin? So that you fear death? Invoke the Name of Jesus, and you will soon feel life returning. No stubbornness of the soul, no weakness, no coldness of heart can resist this holy Name; there is no heart which will not soften and open in tears at this holy name. Are you surrounded by sorrow and danger? invoke the Name of Jesus, and your fears will vanish.  The Name of Jesus is the purest, and holiest, the noblest and most indulgent of names, the Name of all blessings and of all virtues; it is the Name of the God-Man, of sanctity itself. To think of Jesus is to think of the great, infinite God Who, having given us His life as an example, has also bestowed the necessary understanding, energy and assistance to enable us to follow and imitate Him, in our thoughts, inclinations, words and actions.”

May it be so this day and forevermore.