Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
This is an interactive manuscript. To follow links, click the highlighted words below.
As a freshman in high school, we were required to read three books a month for our English class. Our teacher was kind enough to prepare a list of books for us to give us some options. One of those books that I decided to pick up was A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, and I’m glad I did.
A Wizard of Earthsea introduced me to a new fantasy concept: a system of magic based on knowing the name of things. I don’t mean what we call things, but what their true name is.
That idea spoke to me because names, true names, have power. None has more power than the name we celebrate today: the Holy Name of Jesus.
As we hear in the Gospel today, Jesus is given His name because that is what the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary His mother during the Annunciation.
Yet what does this name mean? We were given a clue to that back on the 4th Sunday of Advent in Joseph’s dream. There the angel declares the Child shall be named Jesus because “He will save His people from their sins.”
The name Jesus is actually the Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua, a name which means “Rescuer” or “Deliverer” or “Savior”.
There actually is a Joshua in the Tanakh, the Old Testament. He was the successor of Moses and even lent his name to the first book after Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible. Joshua lived up to his name, for he was the one who finally lead the Hebrews out of their 40 year wandering in the dessert into the Land promised to them by the Lord. He was the one who delivered God’s Chosen People, who finally rescued them and saved them.
Jesus is doing a similar thing to Joshua, except He is not just there for God’s Chosen People. Jesus is there to save everyone, Hebrew and Gentile alike. He is there to deliver us. He is here to rescue us from our sins.
For this reason our Psalm and Epistle note how exalted Jesus’ name is in the world. After all, the Son of Man, one of Jesus’ titles, mentioned in the Psalm is “made but little lower than the angels.” He has been given “mastery over the works of God’s hands.”
Paul speaks more to this role with the Philippians. He says that Jesus did not regard His role and power in Heaven “as something to be exploited”. Instead, Jesus became one of us and even died to rescue, save, and deliver us from sin and the grave. For this reason, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” This is why it is customary in prayers to give a slight bow of the head when we say Jesus’ name.
That power of Jesus’ name in His fullness as Lord is what we recognize in Numbers, with the ancient blessing I heard those who have come before me use, including Bishop Kee Sloan who ordained me. It is the blessing I also use every Sunday, that “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
Jesus’s Name holds power because He lives up to that name. He has delivered, saved, and rescued us from our sins, from death even. It is hard to imagine a name more powerful in this world, and yet the power of Jesus’ Name was made apparent from His willingness to relinquish the power of Heaven and face death in our place, as Paul reminds us.
The Name of Jesus is what it means to look at real power. It’s not power for power’s sake. It is power meant to free and help all of us. We must never forget that.