The Feast of the Name of Jesus, 01/01/2011

Sermon on Luke 2:15-21, by Samuel D. Zumwalt

¹⁵When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." ¹⁶And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. ¹⁷And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. ²¹And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

JESUS!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the days before we got so biblically illiterate, we used to call this day: “The Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord.” Of course, the assumption was that Christians knew that Jewish males are circumcised on the eighth day of life in this world and named as sons of God. Thanks to reruns of the old TV show “Seinfeld” more Christians probably understand the Jewish circumcision and naming ritual today than did when we formerly called this day by its actual name.

Before Jesus was born, both Mary and Joseph had angel (or heavenly messenger) visits in which they were told to name the baby “Jesus” (Luke 1:31; Matthew 1:21). Of course, even the familiar name “Jesus” is actually a transliteration of His name in Greek. If we were to be true to the way He was actually called, we would say: “Yeshua” from which the name “Joshua” comes. The literal meaning of His name is “God saves.”

Since this is the first day of 2011, I think it would be good to start things off on the right foot. Beginning the year with the name of Jesus makes clear that God does the work of saving. This is something Christians frequently get wrong. Because much of Christian preaching is transactional in nature (“If you do this, then God will do that”), much Christian proclamation is actually sub-Christian. By that, I mean that Christian preaching that takes the emphasis off what God does in Jesus Christ is actually sub-Christian. It doesn’t measure up as Christian preaching!

True Christian preaching is monergistic, which means “God does the work of saving!” Much Christian proclamation starts off right talking about what God does for us in Christ by becoming human, living the life of total obedience to God’s law, dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world, and being raised from the dead as the guarantee of eternal life for all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior. Of course, where most Christian preaching takes a wrong turn is classically stated as: “It’s your move!” It goes like this: “Because God has done all of this for you in Christ Jesus, now you have to make the next move by confessing your sins and inviting Him into your heart. Then you will be born again.”

What makes that kind of preaching sub-Christian is this move from monergism to synergism – namely, moving from what God does for you to emphasizing instead what you have to do for God in order to be saved. Quite simply and very subtly, faith has been turned into what you do for God. In the language of Reformation theology, faith has been turned into a work, so that now you are saved by what you do instead of what God does. In Martin Luther’s classic assessment: preaching that wastes the death of God’s Son Jesus is not Christian preaching. It’s not the good news of Jesus if you don’t really need Jesus to do what you cannot do. Or, more bluntly, if you need something in addition to Jesus, you don’t need Jesus! The Christian gospel is monergistic…not synergistic!

Now the typical synergistic response is to point to cultural baptisms as the bogey man. This gets us into the tie between circumcision and infant baptism. Just as even non-practicing Jews will overwhelmingly have the “mohel” (moy-el) come to do the circumcision on the eighth day (Genesis 17 and Leviticus 12) as a sign of the covenant God made with Abraham, most non-practicing Christians will have the baby baptized as a quaint family naming ritual. Yes, any baptism done with water in the name of the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is a valid baptism. The problem with cultural baptisms is not that they are not valid. The problem lies with parents that do not and will not keep the promises made in infant baptism “…faithfully to bring them to the services of God’s house, and teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments…place in their hands the Holy Scriptures and provide for their instruction in the Christian faith, that living in the covenant of their Baptism and in communion with the Church, they may lead godly lives until the day of Jesus Christ” (Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 121).

To use a sad example from life in the world, parents that don’t keep the promises made at the baptism of their children are not much different from parents that abandon their newborns to fend for themselves. In all honesty, we should say that people may be good parents in every way but the one thing needful. They may give their children the whole world but be the cause of their child losing her or his soul! Frankly, we pastors need to say very bluntly that parents who won’t raise their children in the Christian faith ought to ask themselves why they want the child to be baptized in the first place. If grandparents insist on baptizing their grandchildren, then they need to be able to keep the promises that the parents refuse to keep!

Which leads us back to monergism – God does the work! Faith is not something we do. Faith is something the Holy Spirit creates in us. Martin Luther classically wrote: “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel.” When Paul writes in Romans 10 that faith comes by what is heard, he isn’t talking transactional religion. Paul is not saying: “Now that you have heard about Jesus and what He did for you on the cross, now you have to believe this stuff to be saved.” Rather Paul is saying the obvious; the Holy Spirit uses God’s external Word to create faith…to call people to faith. This is not something we do for God (synergism). This is something God does for us (monergism)! God does all the work, and we don’t do any of the work of getting saved! God uses preachers and lay witnesses to get the Good News out to the world!

Of course, the synergistic response is: “Well, then, if you don’t have to do anything, how do you get saved? And, aren’t you saying that everyone will be saved apart from actually believing?” This is, again, a typical bogeyman that is pridefully trying to hold out for some small part for us in God’s saving work. Martin Luther’s response was that all we bring to the table is our sin and death. The Christian Gospel is, then, a happy exchange (“froehliche Wechsel”) in which Christ takes my sin and death and gives me His life and righteousness as a free gift! We do all the sinning and dying. God in Christ does all the saving work!

Yes, dear synergistic friends, in the Lord Jesus’ words: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). But none of that is our work. God does the work of baptizing, and God does the work of creating faith through the external Word of God.

Luther says that God wills that all be saved, but our old Adam or Eve, the old sinner in us, can stupidly say no to God. Luther did not believe in double predestination!

Which gets us back to why we have children and adults baptized with water in the name of the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)! We do so in obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:16-20! We baptize all ethnic groups, and we teach them to obey what the Lord Jesus has commanded…which is why parents keeping the promises made at Baptism is so important! Baptism is a way of life…not a quaint naming ritual for the children of nominally Christian parents!

Because our old Adam or Eve needs to be drowned daily in the waters of Baptism through confession and repentance, we can and do fall short of God’s glory. When we do confess and repent, even that is God the Holy Spirit’s work in us! When we do not live our Baptisms and refuse to heed God’s call to be the children of God, that is nothing but the prideful work of our old Adam or Eve. Again, as Luther says, apart from God, we can do nothing but sin and die!

Being born again (and again and again) is God’s work in us day after day, as He tells us who He is and what He has done for us in Christ Jesus. Yes, reading Scripture daily is where we hear God’s external Word. Yes, attending the services of God’s house is where we hear God’s external Word read, preached, and taught. But none of that is our work! When we read Scripture and when we attend the services of God’s house, it is the Holy Spirit that has brought us to the very places where we can be reminded who and whose we are in the washing of Holy Baptism! It’s like when Mom and Dad puts nutritious food on the table and calls us dinner, we didn’t do anything other than what was good for us. And we wouldn’t have known what was good for us if we had not been called and if the food had not already been provided with tantalizing smells that awakened us to the hunger that was hardwired into us!

Luther’s theological mentor, St. Augustine, was a monergist who fought and won against the heretical preaching and teaching of Pelagius the synergist! It was Augustine who said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. We were made for God, and nothing else will fill that primal hunger…although God knows we, in our foolish pride, try all the other substitutes daily! It’s the old Adam or Eve in us still rebelling like the first parents in the Garden of Eden!

The only way to turn sub-Christian preaching into Christian preaching is to emphasize that God does the work…which is what the angel was telling Mary and Joseph about the baby called Jesus!

It’s a very good thing you are here in God’s house today on this Feast of the Name of Jesus. Beginning a new calendar year on the eighth day of Christmass keeps the focus on the Christian Good News that God in Christ does the work!

The more often you come to the services of God’s house this new year the more you will remember who and whose you are! The less often you come to the services of God’s house in 2011 the more you will think it’s all about you! If you have been baptized with water in the name of the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), then you have the mark of God’s saving work on your forehead. You have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever! Be God’s children daily!

And, as the TV detective Columbo used to say in one way or another: “Just one more thing!” Luke is responsible for the timeline that most Christians follow. We celebrate Advent and Christmas and the Name of Jesus and Lent and Easter and Ascension and Pentecost and most of the other church festivals, because Luke includes those events in His good news story of God’s Son Jesus. At issue is not whether we have the exact days correct or whether Christian festivals conveniently (and thankfully!) eliminated some old bad pagan festivals. At issue is whether we Christians remember who and whose we are by our Baptism into the Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection!

So we begin a new year with the name of Jesus on our lips, and very soon with Jesus’ body and blood (given in bread and wine) on our lips and into our bodies for the forgiveness of sins. God saves, that’s what Jesus name means! And we and others will only be saved if God does the work for us and in us and also through us as God uses us to call others to the waters of Holy Baptism and to the services of God’s house!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Samuel D. Zumwalt
Wilmington, North Carolina USA
E-Mail: szumwalt@bellsouth.net

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