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Chapel Sermons and Homilies

The Name of Jesus

January 8, 2006

Rev. James Wetzstein

Campus Pastor

Luke 2:21

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.

The few years back, Jim Carrey had some success with a film in which he played a guy who wanted more control over his life. As he made his case with his creator, he alleged, among other things, that he himself could do better job of running the world. In response, God, who appears in the film taking the form of Morgan Freeman (and why not?) gives Carrey's self-absorbed, self-pitying character the opportunity to prove himself. Freeman-as-God takes a break, leaving Carrey to discover what real love and selfless service are all about. In many respects it was charming little morality tale. But the film had us at the title "Bruce Almighty".

Now, with all due respect to my friend Prof. Berner at the Law School, and Robert the Bruce of Scottish history, "Bruce" is a goofy name for God. In spite of the fact that it's not in the top ten list of boys names, it's entirely too common. Having said that, I'm the first to concede that "Jim Almighty" isn't any better. Neither are the rest. Even Quinn the Eskimo is only "The Mighty Quinn" And it's not a matter of gender either - Caitlin, Sheila, Ashley: none of the sound any less foolish. "Hi, my name's Barbara and I'll be your god today."

This foolishness puts us in exactly the right place to consider this day: "It is the Name of Jesus."

The name "Jesus" has become so closely identified in our minds with the second person in the Trinity that we risk losing touch with the fact of this name.

We know how Jesus gets his name. In the accounts of Matthew and Luke the name "Jesus" is assigned by God through the angel Gabriel. In independent encounters, both Mary and the Joseph get the message: "His name is to be 'Jesus'." And then the explanation to Joseph "because he will save his people from their sins." And so it was. The name itself, the contraction of the phrase "Yahweh saves", is certainly an appropriate choice for someone so destined. The fact that the name "Jesus" is the Hellenization or the writing in Greek alphabet of the name you "Yeshua" or "Joshua" that we know from the story of the Exodus makes it even neater doesn't it? It turns out that this boy, chosen by Moses, who would later inherit Moses' authority and lead the people of Israel into the paradise of the land promised sort of anticipates the work of Jesus. It actually seems to be a nice tight fit! So tight that Jewish Christians, we're told, used to say the fact that Joshua's name is translated into 'Jesus' in the Septuagint is proof that Jesus was in the Old Testament too!

Except that there were lots of boys named 'Jesus' in the first century Palestine and in the centuries before that. In fact, it seems that since the majority of ethnic Jews started speaking Greek (thank you, Alexander the Great) about as many Jewish boys were named Jesus as had been named Joshua in the years before this shift in spoken language.

Ancient historians of the Jewish people tell us that two guys named Jesus were on the team that translated the Bible into Greek in Alexandria. The historian Josephus, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth Mary names about twenty historically significant Jews named Jesus. Even Barabbas, the notorious criminal freed by Pilate was named Jesus. "Barabbas" was what you and I would consider his surname. So the choice that day was: Do you want to free this Jesus or that Jesus? In fact one might speculate that, as a percentage of the population, they were more kids given the name Jesus in Palestine in the year 4 BC, when Jesus is thought to have been born, than were named Bruce in the US last year. Jesus was named after a great hero and so were lots of other little boys. Does that make it all feel less special?

It makes the naming of Jesus consistent with the divine agenda of Christmas. God takes on human flesh entering humanity the same way you and I did. God is born a fragile helpless infant of a mother who gives him in a nice normal name. Now, granted, the name is dictated by an angel. But so was the pregnancy. "Hi, my name is Jesus and I'll be your messiah today.

So what does Jesus do with his nice name? Well, by some appearances, he makes a mess of it. Appearing on the scene in his early thirties, he seeks baptism from his loose cannon of a cousin John (another boy named by angels.) Then he heads off to gather a school of disciples. These are people not unlike the typical population of Galilee: fishermen, a turncoat tax collector, an aspiring freedom fighter and other women and men of no particular distinction. Though he draws crowds through teaching and miraculous healings-enough to get noticed by the religious opinion makers of this day-he does nothing to win their support. He is seemingly studious in his rejection of their credentials and their credential-granting institutions. He even seems bent on alienating the crowds with his aggressive calls to reject those precious few realities, home and family, from which they might draw comfort. He gathers know wealth and owns no possessions of any note beyond his clothing. His family and dearest friends begin to fear for his life. He speaks when more prudent heads would have remained silent. He refuses to speak when a man of imperial power offers to work with him to get him out of the situation which threatens is very life. In the end the name his mother gave is posted on the shameful, Roman cross that will kill him. The sign's very presence becomes a bone of contention between the religious leaders and the pagan governor who can't seem to understand any of this and whose counter-productive frustration grows with every hour. And then this man named Jesus dies.

And that seems to be the end of his name. A half a dozen ossuaries-bone boxes-have come too light bearing the name of some Jesus who died in that same time. We know nothing of the lives of these other men. It's not like anyone was following any of them around with a note pad, not even Jesus of Nazareth. Except for the stunning claim that this same Jesus left his grave three days later in a resurrection, not just resuscitation, none of the gospels would have been written. It's only in the hindsight of the Gospel tellers that we see what this Jesus, this son of Mary, who Pilate called the King of the Jews and whose followers called the Son of God, was about. It's only in hindsight that we see that this oddly lived life with no name making potential was being lived in radical obedience to the will of the one who is named Yahweh. This was the God who had named Israel, had rescued them from slavery and had centuries before promised to make a name for Abraham. And it was this complete fidelity to the saving God of Israel (with whom he is one God) that made him a suitable ransom for a whole creation caught in a cycle of death hoping against hope to make a name for itself and be remembered and so achieve a kind of immortality.

Indeed, it seems that this one Jesus becomes such a flash point of the action of God, so fully expresses the presence of God for humanity in his work of dying and rising on the third day, that by the second century the name, "Jesus" or "Yeshiva" essentially falls off the birth records of Palestinian. It seems that then and there, in the years of the early church there was only one an incomparable Jesus. Whether you loved him or hated him, it turns out he had made quite a name for himself.

And what of you? What sort of name are you making for yourself? It is after all, the time of resolutions when were prompted to think about these things.

As the film Bruce Almighty is set up, Bruce is making quite a mess of his name. He bemoans his sorry state, but it's hard to sympathize with him. He's a jerk. It takes becoming God, or rather covering for God, to make Bruce into the person he should be, to make a proper name for himself. It's a nice story, but would never work in real life. Not if all of humanity is to the recipient of the benefit. First, it takes awhile for Bruce to catch on to what he's supposed to be doing and we don't have that kind of time.

Second, more significantly and more frighteningly, history teaches that the track record of those with power that approaches that of God is uneven at best. When people play God the rest of us are most certainly in for a rough ride. Not that our more mundane efforts at "name-making" are any more sterling. The celebrity magazines are the most noticeable example of the human penchant for hunting down the dirt on people with big names. Is it because we need to prove that these shining lights are as flawed as the rest of us? Perhaps. Regardless of the motive, one thing is sure. There's always dirt. The name is always tarnished.

In a reverse of the movies, it turns out that God becoming human is what it takes to make a real name. It turns out that this way of making a name receives praise from every one and everything on, above and under the earth. It's the name of Jesus.

And such a name is made so that it might be given away to anyone who needs a good name of her or his own.

It turns out, too, that the name of Jesus is pretty common after all. Tens of thousands of children women and men are bearing it as their own every day and into eternity.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Amen.