January 1, 2023
Numbers
6.22-27, Psalm 8, Galatians 4.4-7 and Luke 2.15-21
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Happy New Year, once again.
I always sort of revel in the New Year.
I
really kind of like this time.
I
love getting up early on New Year’s Day and driving around town.
It
is so quiet and so serene.
This
getting up early on New Year’s Day is a fairly new tradition for me, especially
ever since I became a teetotaler several years ago.
It’s
nice waking up on New Year’s Day and not having a hangover, or, as my mother used
to call it, the “bottle flu.”
There
is always something so hopeful and wonderful about New Year’s Day.
But…I
am going to share a story of a time when it wasn’t so wonderful and hopeful in
my life.
Twenty-one
years ago, as the new year of 2002 began, I faced a bleak new year.
I
had just been laid off from a job I really enjoyed because, surprise of
surprises, I had some issues with my superiors.
If
you thought I was rebellious now, you should’ve seen me back in 2001.
It
was an unpleasant situation, and two days after Christmas, they informed me
that they were letting me go due to a “financial shortfall.”
I
knew the real reason., We all did.
But
I limped toward the end of that year beaten down a bit.
I
was still two years away from being ordained a priest, and the past year had
been a particularly difficult one for me in ministry.
I
was still transitioning from my pre-ministry life to the stark realities of
what real ministry was like.
And,
let’s just say, it was hard.
And
it wasn’t always fun.
As
that New Year dawned, I, for the first time in several years, had very serious
doubts about whether I should be ordained or not.
And I was, to put it bluntly, struggling.
I
was definitely praying for an answer, but no clear answer came.
In
fact, rather than a clear answer telling me I should definitely go forward, the
new year brought me a bigger devastation than losing my job.
In
February of 2002, I was diagnosed with cancer.
And
I spent most of the rest of that year dealing with that.
It’s
not the most pleasant story for us to hear on this New Year’s Day.
But…actually
it kind of is.
The
answers I received to the prayers I was praying on that bleak New Year’s Day in
2002 were answered.
They
were just not answered in the ways I expected, or even wanted.
My
zeal for being a priest was renewed.
I
was healed.
I
got well.
I
pushed forward.
And
look! I endured.
And
when anyone asked me then, or even now, what got me through, I say:
The
love of my parents, the support of my friends and the Holy Name of God.
In
the midst of the stress and turmoil of it all, in those moments, when I
couldn’t form a tangible prayer in my head, the prayer I prayed most was simply
the Name of God.
Sometimes
it was just, “God, help me” or “Please, God” or simply “God.”
If
any of you have ever been anointed by me in the hospital or at any other time,
you will have invariably heard me repeat a wonderful passage that we find in
the Book of Common Prayer.
Which
brings us to the importance of this day.
For
us Episcopalians, is more than just New Year’s Day.
Today,
we celebrated this beautiful Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.
This
feast used to be known at the Circumcision of Our Lord.
We
have kept the feast, but we’ve changed the name, probably for good reason.
On
the eighth day following Jesus’ birth, he, like all Jewish males born in his
time, was brought to the temple, to be circumcised and named.
His
name, Jesus or Joshua, Yeshua in
Hebrew, was a common name in his day.
There
are two differing translations of the name: one is “God with us.”
The
other is “God saves,” or more specifically “God saves us from our sins.”
Today
is an important feast.
It’s
a VERY important feast.
Because,
that Name is important to us.
It’s
important to those of who have been healed by it.
It’s
important for those of us who have found that it is, at times, the only prayer
we can pray.
Today’s
feast also reminds us that we do truly have an intimate relationship with God.
God
is no longer a nameless, distant deity.
God
has a name.
The
God who came to us in Jesus has a name.
Names,
after all, are important.
Our
names are important to us.
They
define us.
We
have been trained to respond when we hear our name called.
We,
in effect, are our names.
Our
names and ourselves are bound inexorably together.
Our
name is truly who we are.
The
same can be said of God.
In
the Old Testament God reveals the Divine Name as Yahweh.
Yahweh
is such a sacred and holy word to Jewish people that it cannot even be
repeated.
In
a sense, the name Yahweh becomes so intertwined with Who God is that is
becomes, for the Jews, almost like God.
And
I agree completely.
It
is the Name God revealed to Aaron.
God
said, “they shall put my name—Yahweh—on them and I will bless them.”
The
message here to all of us is that to have a truly meaningful
relationship with anyone—to truly know them—we need to know them by
their name.
So,
too, is this same idea used when we think about our own relationship with God
and, in turn, God’s relationship with us.
God
knows us by name and we know God by name.
This
is important.
God
is not simply some distant Being we vaguely comprehend.
God
is close.
God
is here, with us.
God
knows us and we know God.
We
know each other by name.
This
is why the name of Jesus is important to us.
That
is why we give the Name of Jesus a certain level of respect.
Like
the Name that was revealed to Aaron, so has the Name of God’s own Son—this
Messiah, this anointed One—has been revealed to us.
And
like the name Yahweh to the Jews, the Name of Jesus is holy and sacred to us
Christians.
Certainly
even for us, the Name is a vital and important part of what we believe as
Christians.
The collect for today recalls that the name of Jesus is the “sign
of our salvation.”
Now, I don’t see that as a sweet, overly sentimental notion.
I see it as a very important part of who we are as Christians.
As most of you know, I take the Name of Jesus very seriously.
As an Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian, you’ll notice during our Mass on Sunday or
Wednesday night, I bow my head every time the Name of Jesus is mentioned.
Again,
I don’t see that as an overly pious action.
I
see it as a sign of respect for Jesus at a time when his Name is widely abused
and misused.
And
we’ve all done it.
We’ve
all sworn, using the Name of Jesus in a disrespectful way.
We
have not given the rightful respect to Jesus’ name in our lives, even when we
know full well that a name is more than just a name.
A
Name is, in a sense, one’s very essence.
Certainly
in the case of Jesus case, it is.
God
is revealed to us in a unique and special way by Jesus.
In
Jesus, we are able to have a truly deep and intimate relationship with God.
In
Jesus we find “God with us.”
In
Jesus, we find “God saving us.”
By
this very name we have a special relationship with this God who has come among
us
We
belong to this God whose name we know.
In
Jesus God has come to all of us.
In
Jesus, God knows each of us by name.
We
are special to our God.
We
are, each of us, deeply loved and cared for by our God.
Certainly
those of us who are Christian know this in a unique way.
When
we were baptized, we, like Jesus eight days after his birth, were named.
At
our baptism, we were signed as Christ’s own forever.
We
were claimed by God by name.
By
Baptism, our own names became holy names.
By
Baptism, God came to know us by name and because of that, our names are
sanctified.
We
bear in us our own holy name before God.
So
today—this day we celebrate not only God’s holy name but our own as well—and in
the days to come, take to heart the fact that God’s name is holy and
sacred.
Be
mindful of the words you use and be mindful of that name of Jesus in your life.
But
also be mindful of your own holy name.
When
you hear your own name, remember that it is the name God knows you by and, as a
result, it is truly holy.
In a sense
our own names can be translated as “God with us.”
When
we hear our names, let us hear “God saves us.”
And
let us be reminded that God knows us better than anyone else—even our own
selves.
Claim
the holiness of your name and know that God in Jesus is calling you to your own
fullness of life by name.
Amen.
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