New Year?s Day, 01/01/2009

Sermon on Luke 2:21, by David Zersen

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived (NIV).

FORTUITOUS NAMING

Some years ago when I found myself in academic settings, I was often struck by the happy or fortuitous names that students bore.

In one case, I was at a university which found it useful to recruit Muslims from countries like Pakistan or Palestine, but alternatively on that Christian campus to deny them a public place to pray. One of these students whose last name was Awadallah became a friend of mine. It struck me as ironic that no one knew what his last name meant in Arabic, but wherever he walked on campus, there went Awadallah, "the presence of God."

In another setting, students found it difficult to pronounce the names of some of the Chinese students, so they chose names for them that they could pronounce. To one student, who as yet knew little English, they gave the personal name, Christian. And although he was a Buddhist, wherever he walked on campus, there went "Christian."

Names can have that fortuitous twist. It was so with the boy in our text who was called Jesus in Greek. Today is the one day in the church year that focuses on his name. In Hebrew it would have been Joshua, or quite imposingly, "Jahveh is salvation." What that name came to mean for him, and for us, is quite a story. It's a story that's worth rehearsing, and then applying to ourselves.

The Name above every name

Let's rehearse some of the history of the name of Jesus.

You will remember the first "Jahveh is Salvation," ol' "Joshua fit de battle of Jericho. Jericho. Jericho." He was a man mighty in battle, and his name fairly symbolizes the victory that is won on the battlefield. He fought the Amalekites under Moses, he spied out Canaan with Caleb (and today the two are regarded as the symbols of the State of Israel). He conquered Jericho and the five kings at Gibeon. He stood with Moses on Sinai and was allowed to enter the Promised Land. He divided the land among the twelve tribes. A whole book of the Old Testament bears his name. In that book, in his Farewell to the leaders of Israel, he says, "Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain-the nations that I conquered-between the Jordan and the Mediterranean in the west."

Quite a man! Quite a reputation to live up to! Many are those, even today, who would see in him the model of leadership which ought to be followed if a nation is to be great.

Then there is the man in today's text, another Joshua, the man the Greek text calls Jesus. According to Mathew, and our text refers to this incident, Joseph receives the name for the child in a dream. Eight days after the child's birth, as was the custom with male children, the boy was brought to the priest, circumcised, and given a name. There was something personal about this moment, even as is true today when a name is given to a child. No longer is this "Baby Doe," but from this point, this is Jeshua ben Josef, in the Aramaic of the day.

Mary perhaps had her own assumptions about the kind of conquering hero this new Joshua would be. In a Christmas anthem, Bethlehem Down, by Bruce Blunt, she muses:

"When He is King we will give him the King's gifts, Myrrh for its sweetness,

and gold for a crown, beautiful robes," said the young girl to Joseph, fair with

her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

Of course, this is not the way it turned out. The new Joshua rallied God's people around a message of peace and goodwill, not the sword and bow. He called people to love one another, to serve the rich and poor alike. He encouraged people not to live by law and commandment, but rather by gracious acceptance and extravagant forgiveness. When those who represented the established religious leadership of the day felt threatened by such words, they arranged with the political powers of the day to have him executed.

It seemed like this was a sorry end for Joshua II. Not only was this a seeming defeat, but it was an embarrassing one (in terms of the symbolic status of crucifixion in that time). In the third verse of the Christmas anthem, Bethlehem Down, mentioned above, the poet writes:

"When he is King, they will clothe him in grave sheets,myrrh for embalming,

and wood for a crown, He that lies now in the white arms of Mary, sleeping so

lightly on Bethlehem Down."

Despite this alternative to the victories belonging to Joshua I, Christians from earliest times have understood this human defeat to be a new kind of victory. In today's Epistle lesson (Phil. 9-13), Paul writes:

"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..." (NIV)

Despite the humiliation, even death on a cross, God does not accept pride, self-righteousness, deceit, hatred and murder as a way of establishing a rule of justice and peace. Even though Joshua II did not conquer any powers as Judas, or perhaps James and John, or maybe even Peter, had hoped, he triumphed in a new and wondrous way. He triumphed in that God raised him from death and left buried in the tomb that kind of power which seeks to conquer by the sword. The very one who said "He who takes the sword will perish with the sword" was given life everlasting. And he lives to give it to you and to me.

His name, not that of Joshua I, remains on our lips this day. It is this Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who rules in our hearts with love and seeks to transform by the power of the Spirit.

What a felicitous name this Jesus has. On the one hand, he is put to death by religious and political authorities, working in cahoots, and many would like to believe that was the end of the matter. Yet his name lives to remind us that "Yahweh is salvation." Mean-spirited, self-centered and power-hungry leaders never have the last word in God's world. God ultimately triumphs through the love of Jesus at work in our world. Joshua II conquers not on the battlefield but in the human heart. And that victory claims a triumph that no battlefield has known.

The name written on a wrist

It is politically correct today to write books underscoring the failures of many who call themselves by the name of Jesus. Going back to the Crusades and to Charlemagne's conversions at the point of the sword, many are those who should never have claimed to be following the Prince of Peace. Additionally, there are many who failed to denounce Hitler and many who acquiesce when innocent and disenfranchised people are ignored. They should never have claimed Jesus was their Lord.

Having said that, there are volumes waiting to be written about quiet and unassuming Christians who have provided shelter for refugees, served in soup kitchens, worked as Blue Santas or collected Coats for Tots. In your city and in mine, there are many who volunteer at the church under the bridge, who serve as big brothers or big sisters, who are members of charitable boards and commissions and who this Christmas gave funds to the Heifer Project instead of to their relatives and friends who didn't need anything anyway.

Most of these people do not ask to be recognized nor do we ever see their names in print. They might think of themselves as servants of the One whose Name is above all names. They might wear a small cross on a lapel or wear a necklace with a cross on it, not just because they love jewelry, but because they, more than anything, identify with the alternative Joshua.

It was interesting to see how the earliest Christians did this with their jewelry. In last 2007 and early 2008, the Kimball Museum in Fort Worth had a remarkable exhibition of the early Christian art of the first four centuries. Never before had such an exhibition of 100 pieces of the most significant early Christian art been assembled. Interesting were those pieces which showed for the first time how Christians in the late 200s and early 300s dared to say who they were in public settings. It was no gaudy chained cross on a rock star. It may have been a small cross in a ring or a broche, not so much a broadcast of one's faith, as a quiet word to mutual servants.

I had such a moving experience a number of years ago when I had left a group and was wandering in a market in Aswan, Egypt. For some reason, I stopped to look at shirts in a stall where a young man was standing. We talked. He told me that he was a teacher, but he couldn't make enough money to support his family so he worked in the market selling shirts. There was an immediate rapport. At one point he asked me if I were a Christian. I was initially surprised by the question. When I said "Yes," he stretched out his hand, not to shake mine but to show me the cross tattooed on the back of his wrist. I had heard about this practice among the Christian Copts of Egypt and knew that it was done in that inconspicuous way because crosses as jewelry would give offense in a Muslim society (Christian Copts represent less than 10% of the Egyptian population) and could even elicit violent reactions. This was a quiet way of bonding with a brother or sister as we went about the business of serving our Lord together.

I wonder how best we might encourage one another as we seek to service the Name above every name, the One who does not call attention to himself so much as he calls us to serve others in His Name. In our own free and diverse society, different people do this in different ways. Some use bumper stickers, some use religious neckties, some write books, some pass out little poems on cards for your pocket. I confess to being put off by a number of these approaches, but I try to accept our diversity recognizing that some may find my own style of witnessing more peculiar than their own.

In some ways I rather like the approach of the young Egyptian Christian who shared Jesus with one who understood him and with whom he could build a ministry. A similar example was told about Grace Lutheran Church in Conroe, Texas, when they heard about the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. They did a study on how many ELCA churches named Grace there were, and they asked all 383 them to share in an outreach to those who had lost so much. They raised $100,000 and gave real meaning to the word "grace." Those who benefited may never have learned in whose name the gifts were given.

Of course, sometimes it's helpful to know in whose name a service is being rendered. When such circumstances arise, it might be less appropriate to say, "These come from Jill Smith or from St. Mark's Church." You might just let them know they came from Jesus.

Wouldn't that be a felicitous use of the Name?

As we begin the New Year, perhaps we might give some thought to some felicitous uses of this most felicitous Name?

Prof. Dr. Dr., President Emeritus David Zersen
Concordia University Texas
Austin, Texas

E-Mail: djzersen@aol.com

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