1st January: The Name of Jesus

Reading: Luke 2: 15 – 21
Sermon by Anne East

Happy New Year!  This year January 1st 2023 falls on a Sunday and we have the opportunity to celebrate the feast of the Naming of Jesus.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church this is also known as the Feast of the Circumcision, in keeping with the Jewish law which states that males should be circumcised eight days after birth, in a a ceremony at which they are also given their name.  

Our names are an incredibly important part of our identity. They carry personal, cultural, familial, and historical connections. They give us a sense of who we are, the communities to which we belong, and our place in the world.  In the past two years I’ve had the pleasure of preaching at both my grandchildren’s baptisms. On each occasion there was quite a lot in the sermons about their names.

My mother chose my name ‘Anne’ because it was the shortest to write on any school book, exam paper or official document. She herself was called Henrietta Eliza – so I take her point. My mother also didn’t want to choose a name that could be shortened. She’d considered my grandmother’s name ‘Elizabeth’ but was anxious about the many varieties that name could take: Liz, Lizzy, Beth, Betty, Bess, Bessie . . . my mother liked to be in control – and so much flexibility filled her with horror. I never did find out how she felt 22 years later when a whole group of friends in Sri Lanka started calling me ‘Annie’ (a lengthening, rather than a shortening – but we’ll set that aside!) The name Jesus is derived from the Hebrew name Yeshua  meaning "to deliver; to rescue.” it is related to another biblical name, Joshua.  ‘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.’  Luke 2:21

The instruction to name Mary’s baby ‘Jesus’ is given not only to his mother but also to Joseph; when he ponders the dilemma of his future wife’s pregnancy he is told, “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ Matthew 1:21

Our Gospel reading this morning takes up the narrative at the point at which the shepherds respond to the message of the angels that they will find a ‘child lying in a manger’ who is Saviour, Messiah and Lord. There is an astonishing juxtaposition here, between the weightiness and importance of those titles and a new born baby lying in a container which is used for animal feed.

‘Saviour’ – one who rescues. This baby, the shepherds are told, is the one who rescues and restores humanity, the One who brings us back into a relationship with God.

‘Messiah: the Anointed One’,  the Promised One, for whom the people of Israel have longed for centuries . For them the coming of the Messiah would bring mean a rebirth of the nation, throwing off the yoke of the oppressor, the occupying Romans and ‘Lord’: a title which denotes exulted status, worthy of worship and devotion. But contrary to whatever the shepherds and others might have expected, the Messiah has not come as a revolutionary, the Lord is not to be found in a palace, the Saviour is just a baby. There is a sense of dislocation there, something being out-of-place, this clashing of the ordinary and the extraordinary.

This sense of dis-location applies to Mary and Joseph too. They had spent time moving further and further away from their home, to go and register. Birth is a messy process, painful and frightening; they found themselves at that crucial point, in the unfamiliar, the unknown, the uncomfortable.

Then a few hours later, before dawn, there are unexpected visitors. Shepherds arrive, with stories of angels and heavenly choirs. These people in their smelly working clothes (remember, shepherds slept with their sheep), these people lived outside the boundaries of polite society, (not like a respected tradesman, such as Joseph was). Shepherds were assumed to lead rather shiftless lives. Yet these people were the first to hear, the first to see, the first to tell of Jesus’ birth.

Outside the boundaries of polite society . . I wonder if you have come across a sculpture by the Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz, that depicts Jesus as a homeless person, sleeping on a park bench? It’s a bronze cast, life size, a figure lying on a bench, face and hands obscured, hidden under a blanket, but crucifixion wounds on his feet reveal his identity. The sculpture is meant to be provocative, to challenge people. The first casts were offered to St Michael’s cathedral in Toronto, and St Patrick’s cathedral in New York, but both declined saying that ‘appreciation was not unanimous.’ In 2013 a cast was finally installed at St Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina.  Some people loved it, some didn’t . That’s the nature of art – it divides people. Some residents, however, were not making their judgement on artistic merit; they said it was ‘an insulting depiction of Jesus that demeaned the neighbourhood.’

The rector of that church described the statue as ‘a Bible lesson for those used to seeing Jesus depicted in traditional religious art as the Christ of glory, enthroned in finery.’ People are often seen sitting on the bench, alongside the statue, resting their hands on the figure lying there, and praying.

Jesus, the homeless; in essence, that’s the kind of life Jesus had: laid in an animal feeding trough at birth, wandering through the countryside, dependent on others for food and shelter. Luke 9: 57-58 “As they were going along the road someone said to Jesus, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’. The people Jesus associated with were rarely the strong and the powerful, but the weak and the marginalised; beginning here with the shepherds.

We do well to  remember this, at the end of a period of frantic consumer activity, where we have been bombarded with images of the people we should aspire to be: the good-looking, the wealthy, the influential. Today we remember a frail new-born baby, and God’s glory being revealed to shepherds – the ordinary and the extraordinary coming together.

 Another name for this baby is Emmanuel, God-with –us.

Christmas is not only the birth of Jesus, an event in history, but also the beginning of a new creation. It is the active remembering of the Divine breaking into our human world; may we, like Mary ponder this in our hearts, and take that sense of awe and wonder with us into the coming year. Amen