January 1: The Feast of the Holy Name

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for January 1, 2023 was preached as a response to the appointed texts for the Holy Name and was bsed on the manuscript below.

Do you know what your name means?
In high school
in the early days of the internet
I was fascinated by babynames.com
where you can quickly learn the barebones roots
of any name.
Previously I’d only seen that information
on bookmarks at tourist stores.
Good luck if you weren’t a
Brittney, Jessica, Jennifer,
Christopher, Michael, or Matthew.
Joseph: God shall increase.
Paul: Humble, small.
Christopher: Christ-bearer
Phineas: Nubian.

While we celebrate today
as the Feast of the Holy Name
we don’t get much about the name of Jesus.
We heard a little
on the Fourth Sunday of Advent
when the angel told Joseph,
“She will bear a son,
and you are to name him Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.”
Moses renames Hosea, which means to save,
to Joshua, God is my salvation.
Jesus and Joshua
are essentially the same name.
Though Babynamer suggests
that with “Jesus” there’s a shift from
“God is my salvation” to
“God is salvation.”

After eight days had passed,
it was time to circumcise the child;
and he was called Jesus,
the name given by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.
While we celebrate today
as the Feast of the Holy Name
we don’t get much about the name of Jesus.
What we get instead are meditations,
on God being salvation
and God dwelling among us
taking on human flesh
to bring salvation to God’s people.
In Numbers we hear of God giving a blessing to Moses
to give to the people
so that God’s name will be on them
and they will be blessed.
To the Galatians Paul writes,
“God sent his Son,
born of a woman,
born under the law,
in order to redeem those who were under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as children.”

There was another epistle option for today
from Philippians,
Let the same mind be in you
that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death–
even death on a cross.
Then we wrap up with Luke,
part of which we heard on Christmas Eve,
but adding today
“After eight days had passed,
it was time to circumcise the child;
and he was called Jesus,
the name given by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.”

Historically, January 1
has not been the feast of the Holy Name.
Being the eighth day from Christmas –
not necessarily after –
it has previously been called
the Feast of the Circumcision.
That sounds very weird,
I know.
However, it’s why we get meditations,
on God being salvation
and God dwelling among us
taking on human flesh
to bring salvation to God’s people.

Jesus being named on the eighth day
and following the rituals of his people
is a solidification
of what we proclaim at Christmas:
God became flesh and lived among us.
God came to live among us
to save us from ourselves
and the mistakes and sins we commit
things done and left undone
every day of every week of every year.
Recording Jesus’ circumcision
is recording how truly human Jesus was
as he continued to be fully God
so that as Paul says
we might receive adoption as children.
Because we are children of God
we have become heirs of God’s salvation.

While we celebrate today
as the Feast of the Holy Name
we don’t get much about the name of Jesus.
Not in the babynamer.com sense
of what the name means.
The texts don’t offer that kind of unpacking
or surface level reading
for this major feast that takes precedence over
the Sunday Easter celebration.
Instead of in the weeds unpacking of the name
we get the name in action.

God is my salvation.
God is salvation.
God sent his Son,
born of a woman,
born under the law,
in order to redeem those who were under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as children.
On this eighth day of Christmas
the feast of the Holy Name
we celebrate the name above all names
the name of saving
through and by which we are saved.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
sweetest name I know
fills my every longing
keeps me singing as I go.

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