by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow
This sermon is based on Luke 2:15-21.
An audio version of this sermon is available here.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Today is our our day to give special thanks and praise to God for revealing to us that Jesus is the Name above all names, the Name of wondrous love, the Name at which every knee must bow and every tongue confess, the Name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear, the Name of God-with-us and us-with-God, the Name that names for us the saving grace that opens up human life to share in divine reality. Today we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus.
And part of that celebration is for us to recognize that, for all the wonderful meanings we have come to see in that name, the name itself is really a very common thing. When Mary and Joseph took their baby boy to be circumcised and gave him the name Jesus, they were doing something that countless other Jewish parents had done for their baby boys before. Jesus — Iēsous as it was pronounced in the Greek that was the international language of travel and business in that time — Yeshua as it was pronounced in the Aramaic that was the language Palestinian Jews spoke among themselves — Jesus, Iēsous, Yeshua was really a very common name among Jews of the first century in Palestine, and lots of Jewish men bore that name. Yeshua was a sort of Aramaic modernization of the Hebrew name Yehōshua — Joshua, as we would say it nowadays — and Yehōshua was an important name from the Bible, and parents then as now would honor their spiritual roots by giving their children names that came from their spiritual tradition. Yeshua was a common name.
In fact, one of the things that makes it so difficult to find archaeological evidence for the life of Jesus is that Yeshua was such a common name. Archaeologists and historians have found a fair number of references from the Ancient Near East that include the name Yeshua, but there’s nothing specific to link that name to the stories of Jesus in the New Testament. Several years ago there was a huge stir in the world of biblical archeology when a collector claimed to have found an ossuary, a burial-box, that was inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The stir was because each of those three names was pretty common in the first century, but nothing had ever before been found that brought the three names together in the relationships they have in the New Testament. A lot of people were thinking “At last! At last we have something tangible, something material, something carved in stone that gives us historical evidence of a Yeshua who looks a lot like Jesus of the New Testament.” The ossuary turned out to be a forgery, and so a huge embarrassment and disappointment to a lot of historians — but it illustrates how hard it can be to make a connection between any Yeshua of history and the Jesus of the New Testament, because Yeshua was a common name.
And Yeshua had a common usage. The name itself means “Yahweh is salvation.” But people who used Yeshua as a name didn’t typically stop to think about what it meant. All names mean something, but we seldom stop to think about those meanings when we call the names. Paul means “small”; Lee means “meadow”; Margaret means “pearl”; Thomas means “twin”; Victoria means, well, “victory”; Philip means “someone who loves horses”; the list goes on. All names mean something, but when we call someone by their name we don’t usually stop to think “This means ‘small’ or ‘meadow’ or ‘pearl’” — we just call the name. It was like that with Yeshua: the name means “Yahweh is salvation,” but nobody stopped to think about that when they used the name. Yeshua was just a common name with a common usage.
In fact, the only thing remarkable about the name Yeshua, Iēsous, Jesus is how very unremarkable a name it is. There is nothing special about it. And yet it is the Name above all names, the Name of wondrous love, the Name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear, the Name that names for us the saving grace that opens up human life to share in divine reality. The mystery of the Holy Name of Jesus, the mystery of the Incarnation itself, is precisely how the not-special, commonplace, ordinary things of human life can be opened up to become signs and symbols and sacraments of the very special, uncommon, extraordinary presence and power of God’s love.
And that is the meaning of the Feast of the Holy Name for us: It is an invitation to look at our names, our meanings, our connections, our families, all the not-special, commonplace, ordinary things that make up our lives — and to see in them the potential to open up into signs and symbols and sacraments of the very special, uncommon, extraordinary presence and power of God’s love in our lives. The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is in a sense an invitation to let our names become holy, too, as we follow Jesus in letting God’s love animate our lives in the Name of Christ.
My name, for instance, is Paul Steven Nancarrow. For a long time I thought my parents had just come up with a nice combination of New Testament names for me. But a few years ago, when he was downsizing his library, my dad gave me a book by his favorite seminary theology professor, “Doc” Kramer. My dad used to tell me stories about how “Doc” Kramer would lecture to the class with a gravelly voice, how he'd raise some new idea or some progressive theological interpretation, something that would push the envelope of the commonplace just a little bit, something that would raise the seminarians’ eyebrows and goad them into thinking in a new way, and then say to the class “Gentlemen, if this be heresy, make the most of it!” I still don't quite know what that means, but I like the attitude behind it — “make the most of it.” So my dad gave me this book by “Doc” Kramer — and when I opened it up and looked at the title page, I saw that “Doc’s” real name was “Paul Stevens Kramer.” Paul Stevens...
Now my mom and dad tell me they had no conscious intention of naming me after a theology professor, but it’s hard not to hear the echo. And you know, I kind of like that echo. I like thinking there are resonances of meaning in my name that go beyond the obvious. Being a theologian myself, I like thinking there’s a theologian in my name. I like it that my name is a kind of reminder to me that sometimes it's my job to push the envelope of the commonplace, to introduce a new idea or novel interpretation, to raise you eyebrows a little bit — and then to say, “Together, let’s make the most of it.” I like it that God gives me a gift of playful creativity to see in my name the hint of a meaning and a ministry and a mission that is larger than myself. My name, Paul Steven, is an ordinary thing; but by the grace of God it can open up with connections and remembrances and meanings to become an extraordinary sign of the joyous love, even the playful love, of God.
And that can be true for all our names, all our stories, all our connections, all our remembrances, all our intentions — all the not-special, coincidental, commonplace, ordinary things that make up our lives. Like the ordinary name Yeshua, Iēsous, Jesus, our ordinary selves can be opened up to be revelations of the extraordinary power and presence of God’s love.
That is what we celebrate on this Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. And I invite you to celebrate that, celebrate that about your name, celebrate that about yourself — and then share that extraordinary love of God revealed in you with someone close to you. Let your name be holy, as you follow the holy Way of the one named Jesus.
And this I say to you in the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This sermon is based on Luke 2:15-21.
An audio version of this sermon is available here.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Today is our our day to give special thanks and praise to God for revealing to us that Jesus is the Name above all names, the Name of wondrous love, the Name at which every knee must bow and every tongue confess, the Name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear, the Name of God-with-us and us-with-God, the Name that names for us the saving grace that opens up human life to share in divine reality. Today we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus.
And part of that celebration is for us to recognize that, for all the wonderful meanings we have come to see in that name, the name itself is really a very common thing. When Mary and Joseph took their baby boy to be circumcised and gave him the name Jesus, they were doing something that countless other Jewish parents had done for their baby boys before. Jesus — Iēsous as it was pronounced in the Greek that was the international language of travel and business in that time — Yeshua as it was pronounced in the Aramaic that was the language Palestinian Jews spoke among themselves — Jesus, Iēsous, Yeshua was really a very common name among Jews of the first century in Palestine, and lots of Jewish men bore that name. Yeshua was a sort of Aramaic modernization of the Hebrew name Yehōshua — Joshua, as we would say it nowadays — and Yehōshua was an important name from the Bible, and parents then as now would honor their spiritual roots by giving their children names that came from their spiritual tradition. Yeshua was a common name.
In fact, one of the things that makes it so difficult to find archaeological evidence for the life of Jesus is that Yeshua was such a common name. Archaeologists and historians have found a fair number of references from the Ancient Near East that include the name Yeshua, but there’s nothing specific to link that name to the stories of Jesus in the New Testament. Several years ago there was a huge stir in the world of biblical archeology when a collector claimed to have found an ossuary, a burial-box, that was inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The stir was because each of those three names was pretty common in the first century, but nothing had ever before been found that brought the three names together in the relationships they have in the New Testament. A lot of people were thinking “At last! At last we have something tangible, something material, something carved in stone that gives us historical evidence of a Yeshua who looks a lot like Jesus of the New Testament.” The ossuary turned out to be a forgery, and so a huge embarrassment and disappointment to a lot of historians — but it illustrates how hard it can be to make a connection between any Yeshua of history and the Jesus of the New Testament, because Yeshua was a common name.
And Yeshua had a common usage. The name itself means “Yahweh is salvation.” But people who used Yeshua as a name didn’t typically stop to think about what it meant. All names mean something, but we seldom stop to think about those meanings when we call the names. Paul means “small”; Lee means “meadow”; Margaret means “pearl”; Thomas means “twin”; Victoria means, well, “victory”; Philip means “someone who loves horses”; the list goes on. All names mean something, but when we call someone by their name we don’t usually stop to think “This means ‘small’ or ‘meadow’ or ‘pearl’” — we just call the name. It was like that with Yeshua: the name means “Yahweh is salvation,” but nobody stopped to think about that when they used the name. Yeshua was just a common name with a common usage.
In fact, the only thing remarkable about the name Yeshua, Iēsous, Jesus is how very unremarkable a name it is. There is nothing special about it. And yet it is the Name above all names, the Name of wondrous love, the Name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear, the Name that names for us the saving grace that opens up human life to share in divine reality. The mystery of the Holy Name of Jesus, the mystery of the Incarnation itself, is precisely how the not-special, commonplace, ordinary things of human life can be opened up to become signs and symbols and sacraments of the very special, uncommon, extraordinary presence and power of God’s love.
And that is the meaning of the Feast of the Holy Name for us: It is an invitation to look at our names, our meanings, our connections, our families, all the not-special, commonplace, ordinary things that make up our lives — and to see in them the potential to open up into signs and symbols and sacraments of the very special, uncommon, extraordinary presence and power of God’s love in our lives. The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is in a sense an invitation to let our names become holy, too, as we follow Jesus in letting God’s love animate our lives in the Name of Christ.
My name, for instance, is Paul Steven Nancarrow. For a long time I thought my parents had just come up with a nice combination of New Testament names for me. But a few years ago, when he was downsizing his library, my dad gave me a book by his favorite seminary theology professor, “Doc” Kramer. My dad used to tell me stories about how “Doc” Kramer would lecture to the class with a gravelly voice, how he'd raise some new idea or some progressive theological interpretation, something that would push the envelope of the commonplace just a little bit, something that would raise the seminarians’ eyebrows and goad them into thinking in a new way, and then say to the class “Gentlemen, if this be heresy, make the most of it!” I still don't quite know what that means, but I like the attitude behind it — “make the most of it.” So my dad gave me this book by “Doc” Kramer — and when I opened it up and looked at the title page, I saw that “Doc’s” real name was “Paul Stevens Kramer.” Paul Stevens...
Now my mom and dad tell me they had no conscious intention of naming me after a theology professor, but it’s hard not to hear the echo. And you know, I kind of like that echo. I like thinking there are resonances of meaning in my name that go beyond the obvious. Being a theologian myself, I like thinking there’s a theologian in my name. I like it that my name is a kind of reminder to me that sometimes it's my job to push the envelope of the commonplace, to introduce a new idea or novel interpretation, to raise you eyebrows a little bit — and then to say, “Together, let’s make the most of it.” I like it that God gives me a gift of playful creativity to see in my name the hint of a meaning and a ministry and a mission that is larger than myself. My name, Paul Steven, is an ordinary thing; but by the grace of God it can open up with connections and remembrances and meanings to become an extraordinary sign of the joyous love, even the playful love, of God.
And that can be true for all our names, all our stories, all our connections, all our remembrances, all our intentions — all the not-special, coincidental, commonplace, ordinary things that make up our lives. Like the ordinary name Yeshua, Iēsous, Jesus, our ordinary selves can be opened up to be revelations of the extraordinary power and presence of God’s love.
That is what we celebrate on this Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. And I invite you to celebrate that, celebrate that about your name, celebrate that about yourself — and then share that extraordinary love of God revealed in you with someone close to you. Let your name be holy, as you follow the holy Way of the one named Jesus.
And this I say to you in the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment