01012023 – The Name of Jesus
For those of you, who like to learn “new things,” this is didactic…a teaching sermon…for those of you, who do not, I am sorry. Bear with me…I’ll try to be quick (Just keep in mind the Packer Game doesn’t air until 3:25 P.M.!)
In the book of Deuteronomy God instructed the people of Israel that—when they got into the promised land—He would show them THE PLACE where they WERE to worship him.
God described THAT LOCATION as “the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes TO PUT HIS NAME.”
God wasn’t talking about writing his name on a TOWN or a BUILDING.
He was referring to WHERE the TABERNACLE—and ultimately THE TEMPLE—was to be stationed or erected.
But he wasn’t talking about writing “YAHWEH” on that either!
Nothing of the sort is ever recorded in the Holy Scripture.
Rather, God was talking about THE PLACE where he would choose to MEET Israel personally—”his very PRESENCE.”
So, the description “THE NAME” actually refers to the PRESENCE of God.
This PRESENCE was AT TIMES visibly evident through the so-called “glory cloud.”
At other times, the name came in human form.
For instance, in the book of Exodus God tells Moses that he is sending AN ANGEL, (a messenger) to bring Israel to the promised land.
God warned Moses that this ANGEL would pardon no transgression since “MY NAME IS IN HIM.”
We learn from the book of Judges that the ANGEL did indeed lead them to the land.
But how could God’s NAME “BE IN” an angel?
The answer is that “THE NAME” referred to the very PRESENCE of God—his ESSE or ESSENCE.
This is later confirmed in the book of Deuteronomy…
There it says, that instead of the ANGEL being credited as THE ONE who would bring Israel to Canaan, IT IS God who brought them there “with his very own PRESENCE.”
So, the phrase…THE NAME…means the PRESENCE of God.
Later, in the Gospel of John, this same kind of thinking is brought up again…
This time it is in a section of John’s gospel known as the High Priestly Prayer.
Before His arrest and crucifixion, Jesus prays: “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.
Holy Father, keep them “IN YOUR NAME”, which you have GIVEN ME, that they may be one, even as we are one.”
The Gospels are clear that THE NAME given to Mary’s child was Jesus—and that IS NOT God’s name.
But the idea is that…THE VERY ESSENCE of the Father…was IN Jesus.
They were ONE.
It is a theological statement.
GOD himself was PRESENT in and through the ministry of Jesus Christ.
It only takes A FEW WORDS to produce “dramatic theology.”
Just a “couple of words” or maybe even “a simple phrase” can sometimes send my head spinning.
Such was the case with the phrase: THE NAME…
In the short letter or EPISTLE, we know as being 3rd John, the apostle is writing to a beloved friend, Gaius.
He commends Gaius for ministering to fellow believers who were strangers because “they have gone out FOR THE SAKE OF THE NAME.”
It is a phrase that I always found as being ODD or a bit CURIOUS.
John doesn’t use the phrase “in Jesus’ name” or “the name of Jesus”; it’s simply, “FOR THE SAKE OF “THE NAME.”
Why THIS PHRASE?
Is John trying to be SECRETIVE?
Why this CRYPTIC language?
Well, he was actually drawing on that ancient Hebraic expression, coming right out of the Hebrew Bible, itself.
When understood in that “original context”—and the context of his other writings—John’s odd wording amounts to A POWERFUL STATEMENT on the deity of Jesus.
For John, ministering “for the sake of THE NAME” meant spreading the news of Jesus.
By using this “simple phrase,” he linked Jesus with “THE ANCIENT NAME” of the HEBREW BIBLE—the VERY PRESENCE OF GOD HIMSELF.
God’s NAME had come “in the flesh.” (There’s our Season of Christmas tie–in!)
If ever A NAME was packed with significance, it is THE NAME, Jesus. Scripture says Jesus has been given “THE NAME that is above every NAME so that at the NAME of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth”
Why is Jesus’ NAME so powerful?
What does the NAME Jesus mean?
The name Jesus, announced to Joseph and Mary through the angels, means “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation.”
Transliterated from Hebrew and Aramaic, the name is Yeshua.
This word is a combination of Ya, an abbreviation for Yahweh, the name of Israel’s God; and the verb Yasha, meaning “RESCUE,” “DELIVER,” or “SAVE.”
The English spelling of the Hebrew Yeshua is Joshua.
But when translated from Hebrew into Koine Greek, the original language of the EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS, the NAME Yeshua becomes Iēsous.
In English, Iēsous becomes Jesus.
Thus, Yeshua and, correspondingly, Joshua and Jesus mean “Yahweh saves” or “the Lord is salvation.”
The NAME Jesus (as you know) was quite popular in first-century Judea.
And was, for this reason, Jesus was often called “Jesus of Nazareth,” distinguishing him by his childhood home, the town of Nazareth in Galilee.
Despite its commonness, the NAME Jesus is remarkably significant. Jesus was sent by God for a particular purpose, and his personal NAME bears witness to that mission.
Just as the Yeshua/Joshua in the Hebrew Bible led his people to victory over the Canaanites, the Yeshua/Jesus in the Early Christian Writings led his people to victory over sin, death, and the evil one.
There is something about “that NAME, that PRESENCE in our midst.” And today, the church celebrates it…the Holy Name of Jesus.
Amen.