Now, I’m a long time country/western fan. I just love a good country song that proclaims:
“I don’t love you anymore, trouble is, I don’t love you any less!” There are even some truly classic country Christmas songs such as Momma got run (or run-ed’) over by a reindeer!
I always had a fondness for some of the “outlaw” singers…. Like Waylan Jennings, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristersoferson, who by the way, in addition to being an accomplished actor is a Rhodes Scholar…and one “y’all”, even those who are not country fans may remember… Johnny Cash.
Johnny had a whole lot of hit records and even made it big with some novelty recordings. The one I’m thinking of today is entitled “A boy named Sue.” The story tells how this poor unfortunate boy was given the name “Sue” by his long since “run off” daddy. The singer tells of his struggles growing up stuck with that handle… and finally, after searching all his life, catching up with poppa!
Well as you can imagine, quite a battle ensues, but in the end, dad tells his son he knew he wouldn’t be around to help his boy grow up (of course we’re not told why he won’t be, that’s left to our imagination) but he (dad) knew his boy was going to have struggles in this world, especially w/o a daddy and so he wanted his boy to grow up tough…ergo the name Sue.. and Johnny Cash in the telling of the story through song, reluctantly admits it worked!
We are at the mercy of our name givers aren’t we. And we know these things influence us for the rest of our lives, and we have nothing to do with it.”
The naming of a child is an important part of our Scripture passage this morning. In fact, there are two important names given, both belonging to the same person, but each helping us to know more about him.
He shall be called Jesus. The Scripture tells us that before Jesus was born, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, telling him that the Holy Spirit conceived the child Mary was carrying, and he should not fear to take Mary as his wife. That wasn’t the only piece of information the angle provided… the angel told Joseph what to name the child — Jesus.
Jesus was a common name. There were many Jewish boys with the name Joshua (translated in the Greek, Jesus); It was the “Bob” of the first century. Are you aware there is another “Jesus” named in the New Testament? He was a companion to the apostle Paul and Paul mentions him in Colossians 4:11 as part of a list of people sending greetings to the church at Colossae. And Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, mentions no fewer than 20 different men named Jesus.
Thus, the child whom God sent to be the Savior of the world was given a name common to the time and place, one that by itself did not set him apart from the rest of the human race. Isn’t this too, consistent with what we know of Jesus’ appearance.. that there was nothing to set him apart from the rest of the population…at least in appearance.
Lets look at the three names assigned to God’s Son. The name Jesus means “Savior” and comes from the Hebrew name, Joshua (“Jehovah is salvation”). There were many Jewish boys with the name Joshua (or, in the Greek, Jesus);
But Mary’s Boy was called “Jesus the Christ.” The word Christ means “anointed”; it is the Greek equivalent of Messiah. He is “Jesus the Messiah.” Jesus is His human name; Christ is His official title;
“Jesus” was the name entered into whatever official birth records of those days. In the case of this particular child, that name was sometimes used in conjunction with further identifiers, such as Jesus of Nazareth; or Jesus, son of Joseph; or Jesus, son of David (referring to his ancestry), but all these were actual labels referring to the one who was born to Mary around the beginning of the first century A.D.
While it was a common name, it was not a meaningless one. As we have learned, Jesus means, “God is salvation,” or, as we also have often heard, Jesus = Savior. The angel who appears to Joseph alludes to that meaning when he says, “... you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” This is the mission of Jesus, and we must always remember how the birth leads to our salvation through the Cross.
This child was given a name that would be a constant reminder of the saving grace of God.
Matthew tells us what the angel said, and then tells us that the angel’s announcement to Joseph about the divine origin of the child, and the naming fulfilled what Isaiah had written centuries earlier, and quotes Isaiah 7:14: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.”
The King, then, was a Jewish male who is also the divine Son of God. But, did anybody acknowledge His kingship? Yes, the magi from the East came and worshiped Him.
And that name, Emmanuel, as Matthew hastens to tell us, means “God with us.” Note, the Scripture does not say God “is” with us… it reads “God WITH us.” This is a very important point which we will explore in a few moments.
Thus, between his given name, Jesus, and his symbolic name, Emmanuel, this child to be born to Mary makes two important affirmations about God — that he saves us and that he is with us.
The name Jesus, tells us that God is the author of our salvation. But what does that word mean? We so often hear it applied to forgiveness of our sins, which is truth, but wait… there’s more and we that we may miss its fuller impact.
You see, God created us to have connection, close association, communion with him, relationship.
But to have that connection, we have to change and become fit for it. Among the things that make us unfit are our sins and self-centeredness, pride.
But when we turn to God, He makes it possible through Jesus to change, to become fit for communion with God. This is only possible when we come to Jesus at the foot of the Cross and lay all our burdens, all our worries, all our concerns, all our sin there at His feet.
In other words, Jesus saves.
Sometimes that phrase has silly applications though. Last year — true story — the “Smith’s” ( ok, not their real names) gathered in New Jersey for the wedding of the oldest son. The Jersey community isn’t far from New York City as the crow flies, but in terms of ground transportation, it requires some effort to get there from the Big Apple.
The first event of the weekend was a dinner for family and friends at a local restaurant. Rachel, the groom’s sister was living in Boston at the time, and she traveled by bus to New York City. From there, she had planned to take a train directly to the Jersey town to the dinner. However, when she got to New York, she discovered the train wasn’t running that day due to a fire at a crucial junction point.
, Rachel called her brother Alex for an alternative idea, who turned her over to his Hispanic friend, Jesus, a long-time resident of the area. Jesus directed her to take a different train, bringing her into New Jersey but a different location. Jesus said he’d be there to pick her up when she arrived, and he was.
Thus, Jesus got Rachel to her brother’s wedding dinner on time. So when Jesus drove up with Rachel in his car, someone — predictably — observed that Jesus had “saved” her, and everyone had a good chuckle.
But perhaps that application of the term is not so silly after all.
Because God sent Jesus to move us from where we are, a place we cannot be in communion with God, from where we are separated from God, …to where we need to be, to sit at the table of fellowship with him in the daily round of life as well as in the kingdom to come.
“God is salvation.” That’s what the name Jesus means. God is our salvation and Jesus is the way God provided for salvation to come to us.
Jesus’ symbolic name, Emmanuel, adds even more to our understanding of God. “God with us” is a message we need to hear. Our world has layer upon layer of troubles and our own encounters with life are not all sweetness and light either. So the reality of God-being with us is critical.
Like God, through the Holy Spirit…. Is…. Everywhere!
I said earlier that the Scriptures read “God WITH us” Not God IS with us. Why is this important? Because we need to understand that to have God WITH us… as a part of our being, within us, is not same as being just “with” us. If I take a walk with my wife, she is with me. If we take our pet along, then the pet “is with” us.
But to know God… to truly experience all His love and Grace, we must have God with us, Perhaps this concept is easier go grasp if we envision God, through the Holy Spirit, as “within” us.
For us to be the disciples God calls us to be… to be the essence of Jesus to all whom we meet we must have Christ in us, with us … guiding us, encouraging us, comforting us, picking us up when we fall, God with us… just as the Scriptures tell us…
Possibly it will help to understand what God is saying this way… For us to live in these bodies on earth we must breath in air… correct? Air God has carefully formulated to allow these bodies to have life as we understand life on earth.
Can we see air? Of course not. Oh we’ve all heard people say things like “the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife.” But we’re really talking about the heat, or the humidity. We simply can’t see the air anymore that we can see the wind. We can see the effects of the wind, but not the wind itself. So it is with the air…. So it is with the Holy Spirit.
We cannot survive on this earth without air. Without air, our bodies die.
To experience the fullness of Gods love and Grace and Power, to experience the Kingdom of God, we must have God with us... within us... not just alongside us, but “with” us.
Think of it this way. Each time we draw a breath, we breathe in God through the Holy Spirit. We can’t see the Holy Spirit, but surely we experience the effects of the Holy Spirit... we see the impact of the Holy Spirit on others all around us.
Just as we our bodies cannot survive on earth without air, so it is with our souls to survive, to begin experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, now and for eternity, we must have God with us.
(Take a deep breath) GOD WITH US (Breathe again) GOD DIRECTING MY STEPS (Breathe again) GOD WITHIN ME WITH EACH BREATH FILLING ME WITH HIS LOVE AND GRACE (Breathe again) GOD FILLING ME WITH SUCH JOY AND PEACE THAT I AM UNABLE TO PUT INTO WORDS WHAT BLISS I AM EXPERIENCING… WHAT PEACE.
Do you remember the actor Christopher Reeve? How he suffered a devastating accident that left him paralyzed. He had to learn how to breathe in a new way. If you had seen any of his interviews after the injury you understand what I mean. He didn’t take breathing for granted… each breath drawn was intentional, with purpose…(breathe deeply, mirroring the breathing techniques of Christopher Reeve and others with similar injuries)
This is God with us. How can we hope to survive for eternity without God with us?
Each time we take a breath, (Breathe) we can envision God “with” us.
To say we know God “is” with us is not a bad thing. God is everywhere, all around us.
When it comes right down to it, however, we are probably less concerned with the fact that God is everywhere than we are with knowing that God is present where we are – each single one of us — in whatever situations we find ourselves.
In the same way, it’s less important that God can be “accessed” from anywhere than that God will hear us from where we are. The message of Jesus’ symbolic name is not that God is everywhere, even though that is true, but that God is here with us. God’s omnipresent yes, but more to the point, God is also specific. “God with us” where we are, within us.
God brings us salvation through Jesus; He makes us fit to be in communion — in relationship…in connection — with him. God with us, we with God, one with God.
In the naming of Jesus, two powerful testimonies remind us of how God comes to us, if we will allow him. No matter what we go through, he is present with us where we are and he comes with salvation.
That’s plenty of reason to celebrate the birth of the boy named Jesus.
