Dear
friends in Christ, greetings to you this very cold first day of 2018.
It's not just New Year's Day, but it's also in fact a Church
Holiday, the Name of Jesus. This comes from the fact that it was on
the 8th Day, one
week after His birth, Jesus was circumcised and named. This is what
we see in our Gospel lesson, short though it is. And
at the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called
Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the
womb.
Today, let us spend some time meditating on the Name of Jesus as the
year slowly ends.
There
is one thing to notice here that nowadays we don’t think too much
about. The 8th
day, which is now, is of profound importance in the Old Testament for
a child. The 8th
day is when everything becomes official. He’s been around a week,
but Jesus is only named at His Circumcision. This was the custom of
the day in the Old Testament times. The child received his name on
the day of his circumcision. As an example of this, when King David
has his affair with Bathsheeba, the child dies on the 7th
day. That’s why we never get his name. . . he hadn’t been
officially named yet. So, therefore, even Jesus isn’t technically
named Jesus until the 8th
day.
It was
the custom for a long, long time in the Christian Church not to name
a child until they are Baptized. We see this in the Baptism service.
When I baptize a child, I ask, “How is this child to be named?”
That wasn’t just a way for absent minded pastors to remember what
the kid’s name is supposed to be, but it was the official act of
publicly naming the Child. In fact, this is how Martin Luther got
his name. The little Luther boy was baptized the day after his
birth, which happens to be St. Martin’s Day, so his name is Martin.
The first time I said Victor and Ambrose's names to them outside of
the womb was when I baptized them. There is an association of
Baptism with naming. Evidence of this is that baptism is also called
Christening. . . and rightfully so, Christ-in-ing, putting in Christ.
In Baptism we are clothed with Christ. But now, when we think of
Christening, we think of naming ships for navy, but that idea comes
from the idea of giving a name at Baptism. However today, with legal
birth certificates done by the state, we don’t wait to name the kid
until Baptism. It’s something that has fallen away, no huge deal,
though we will make a big deal of it today – the giving of the name
is our focus and our cause to rejoice. Today we celebrate the Name
Jesus, because it was today that He took that Name upon Himself.
So let
us look at the Name Jesus. One of the other things that we have lost
in America is the fact that names have meaning. When you named
someone, the name signified something. Our names do as well, but,
most of our names aren’t from English, so we don’t know what they
mean. Eric, for example, is a derivation of powerful from Swedish.
Now, I know that because I’ve looked it up, but I don’t hear my
name and think powerful. Neither did my parents. . . I got named
Eric because my dad really liked Eric Soderholm, who was the 3rd
baseman for the Chicago White Sox in 1977. Even with names that have
meanings in English, we don’t think of their meaning. We see some
named Butch, and it’s just a name, not a description. We see a guy
named Dale, and we don’t think of a valley. Chip, we don’t think
of something little. Victor? Oh, what has he won? In America,
because we pull names from so many languages, we don’t often think
of them having meaning. In Jesus day, in the Old Testament, it was
different. Names had meanings that said something, that proclaimed
something. Names were meant to be little sermons, little confessions
of what is true and real. Like Daniel. Daniel means, “God is my
Judge.” Dan is Judge, “i” is my, and el is an abbreviation of
Elohim, or God. Abram – exalted father – gets his named changed
by God to Abraham – father of a multitude. Ab is father – ram is
exalted, raham is of a multitude. The names have meaning.
The
Name Jesus works the same way. In Hebrew it would be pronounced
Yeshua – Ye being short for Jehovah, the LORD, and shua meaning
“saves”. The name Jesus, and the name Joshua for that matter,
means “The Lord saves.” Is this not wonderful? Everything about
Jesus is Gospel, even His very Name itself. To simply say the Name
“Jesus” is to confess that God is the Savior, that He is the One
who saves. This is the significance of the Name of Jesus. It tells
us exactly what is going on here. Why do we have this Jesus running
around? Well, because Yeshua, because The LORD Saves.
And
how does The LORD Save? We see this in the fact that Jesus was
circumcised. So Jesus is circumcised, what’s the big deal? First,
in being circumcised, we see Jesus fulfilling the law. In being
circumcised, we see Jesus doing all the things that He needs to do to
be completely righteous. If you look at all of the laws of the Old
Testament, Jesus does everything that is required of Human beings. By
being circumcised, Jesus is placed under the Law as all of us are,
except with Jesus, there is one major difference. He can and does do
the Law perfectly. No sin, no flaw in our Lord, simply perfection in
Human flesh. We see Jesus fulfilling the law in our place.
But
also, we see something else. I don’t know how many of you have
seen a circumcision, but when you think about it, it’s a bloody
thing. You are cutting flesh from a rather tender area, and it
bleeds. Do you see what else we get in circumcision? Today we
celebrate the first time in which our Lord shed His blood for us. It
is at His circumcision that the very Blood which is poured out for us
on the Cross is first poured out for us. And it is interesting to
note that this blood shedding comes under the law. The Law says on
the 8th day males
are to be circumcised, and so Jesus is. It is because Jesus our Lord
submits Himself to the law that He is wounded, that He bleeds. Is
this not the same thing we see at the Crucifixion? Christ Jesus, the
Lord of Creation, submitting Himself to the punishments of the law,
our punishment, which we deserved, in our stead? Even from the
beginning of His days on the earth, Christ Jesus takes His place with
us and sheds His blood on your behalf, blood that is always given and
shed for you for the remission of all of your sins.
Dear
friends, the way we end the old and begin the new year in the Church
is to look at Christ Jesus our Lord, the Lord Who Saves, and to give
praise to Him for the fact that He is the God who becomes Man and
suffers for our sake. In the year to come, may you remember richly
the forgiveness that Jesus has won for you, may you hear it preached
often, may you taste it often in His supper. Indeed, the Lord Saves,
and let us give Him thanks and praise for that in all years to come,
even until the end of time. Amen.