The Naming of Jesus: A Reflection

When I look at one of the banners that we post over the door of Saint Faith's, I see an excellent and brief description of what it means to be a mature human being:  'Open hearts, open hands, open minds'.  This phrase speaks of the important balance and integration of our feelings, our actions and our intellect.  A person who relies on only one of these dimensions can become unbalanced and may, almost inevitably, find herself or himself in unhappy situations or burnt out or devoid of empathy and human feeling.

From time to time I have voiced my criticism of one such extreme:  an over-reliance upon feelings, something that we can call 'romanticism'.  Romantics, for example, tend to see love primarily as a feeling, while a more mature view understands love to involve our 'doing' and our 'thinking' as well.

Although I tend to be quite critical of romanticism, I have to admit that I am not immune to its allure.  This surrender to feelings reveals itself in various ways, one of which can be seen in the names that Paula and I gave to our children.

We named our oldest David Michael:  David after David, the patron saint of the Welsh people, and Michael after Michael the Archangel whose feast day comes a few days after David's birthday.  We named our daughter Anna Frances:  Anna after Anna, the prophet who greeted the infant Jesus and Mary and Joseph in the Temple, and Frances after Francis of Assisi whose feast day comes a few days before her birthday.  My romanticism reveals itself most visibly in our youngest, Owen Thomas:  Owen after Owain Glyn Dwr, the last true Welsh Prince of Wales, and Thomas the apostle upon whose feast day, the 21st of December, I was ordained to the presbyterate in 1981.

For me our three children carry their Welsh and Christian heritage into the next generation.  From their mother they carry on, in Spanish tradition, a double-barrelled family name, 'Porter Leggett'.  For our children, feelings have trumped any other consideration.

But for Mary and Joseph the naming of their child was more about action than feelings or intellect.  Theirs was a difficult time and the name given to their child had political overtones.

The name 'Jesus' comes via the Greek language from the Hebrew 'Yeshua'.  This Hebrew name means 'The Lord God saves' or 'the Lord God has saved' or 'the Lord God will save' or all three at the same time.  It is the same name as Joshua, the young protege of Moses, who led the Israelites in the successful settlement of the land of Canaan.  It is a name that congers up memories of a time of Israel's ascendancy and God's sovereignty over any earthly rulers --- not exactly the kind of memories that are likely to be welcomed by the Roman and Herodian authorities or to endear this child to them.

To celebrate the 'Naming' of Jesus is not about commemorating an event in the life of the child Jesus.  It is about claiming an identity, a name if you will, that is ours through our choice to follow the way of Jesus.

By following the way of Jesus we have embarked on a pilgrimage that requires much of us.  We have chosen to open our hearts not just to God but to our neighbours and those in any need or trouble, to feel their sorrow as our sorrow, their hunger as our hunger, their homelessness as our homelessness.  We have chosen to open our hands not just to serve God but to serve our neighbours, to work in the here and now to make the kingdom of God present, even if only for brief moments.  We have chosen to open our minds to the wisdom of God and of our neighbours, to discern how the mystery of God continues to revel itself in our world.

All this we feel and do and think because of our name:  the followers of the way of Jesus, the way of the God who has saved, who is saving and who will save.  With all respect to Shakespeare, a rose by any other name would not smell as sweet.  A name is more than a sound; it is an identity with a history and a future.

As we begin yet one more year of ministry in this place, may we continue to be true to the identity we assumed at our baptism.  Let our hearts, our hands and our minds be open to God's call to us in Jesus, son of Mary, son of Joseph, son of God, for his name is our name, his mission our mission and his future our future.  Amen.