And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” (Luke 1:31)
“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:20)
And 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. (Luke 2:21)
Shakespeare’s Juliet asks, What’s in a name? She seems to imply that names don’t matter very much — That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. Romeo says, Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo. In Scripture, though, names do matter. So why is the name Jesus significant? On this Feast of the Holy Name, let’s explore why the name of Jesus is important.
Some background about the meaning of any name we use for the divine will help us answer that question. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the mysterious Name of God appears again and again, although never spoken aloud. Instead, “Adonai” or “the Lord” is substituted whenever the four letters of God’s “name” appear.
The proper relationship of human beings to the deity is thus set forth: God is the Lord and we people are to be his servants, an ebed Adonai, not a slave, who has no free will, but a willing servant. The Authorized (King James) Version and the Revised Standard Version of the Bible put Lord in capital letters when they are translating Hebrew, to make it clear when they appear in the text.
Many psalms praise God’s name, ha shem in Hebrew, without attempting to write it, and the third Commandment prohibits taking God’s name in vain. In ancient times, knowing the name of a god implied power to invoke or even control that deity; and since there were many gods and goddesses, it was important to know their names and their special realms of power.
The Hebrew insight that there is only one God obviated that need and regarded any use of a name for God as impious and erroneous. That was not just to avoid accidentally taking God’s name in vain, but also a recognition that God’s name is ineffable. The creed “Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one” combines the old names for Canaanite gods, El and yhwh, (adonai elohim) to affirm that there is only one God, who does not need a name, for he is not one among many; this God is neither male nor female, and is the creator of all that is, not just our land, that sea, or our tribe, but is Creator and Lord of all.
The unfortunate tendency from the middle 20th century onward for some to speak of the God of the Old Testament as “Yahweh,” as if we have just recently discovered how to pronounce the Hebrew letters, does not just ignore the tradition of the Jewish people and of Christian practice from the beginning; it also implies that we know another name for God, besides that which God gave to his incarnate son, Jesus. It is significant that Jesus called God “Father,” not any name, and taught his disciples to pray to “our Father in Heaven.”
It is when the angel Gabriel tells Mary before he was conceived that the child is to be named Jesus, and then gives that name to Joseph as he is counseled to take Mary as his wife and become the earthly father of that child, that a name is given for us women and men to know and call upon. A human being, unlike the one God, needs a name; and Jesus, which in Hebrew is Yeshuah, or “savior,” defines the mission of his life, “for he will save his people from their sins.”
On the Day of Pentecost, Peter proclaims, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). “Jesus is Lord” became the creed of the early church, implying his divinity to all who understood the traditional use of that title.
St. Paul writes of Jesus that “God … raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come” (Eph. 1:20-21).
And Paul sees God’s message to Isaiah — “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (45:23) — when he writes:
And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. (Phil. 2:7-10)
Paul’s words are drawn into our pastoral life as Anglicans in the prayer after anointing the sick in the Book of Common Prayer (1979): “that the only Name under heaven given for health and salvation is the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Caroline Maria Noel summed it all up beautifully in the words to Hymn 435 in the 1982 Hymnal, “At the name of Jesus.” Sing it today, whether or not you can carry a tune.
The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana and formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church in New Orleans. She lives now in her hometown of San Antonio, Texas, as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico, and New Orleans.