When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel. Naming a child is the first step in child-rearing that parents undertake. In many cultures and families, it is traditional to name your child after a relative. Remember in the story of the naming of John the Baptist the onlookers objected to the name because “no one in your family has that name.” A priest I know from Mexico is named Ermeregildo. In his part of the country it was customary to name your baby for the saint of the day, in his case April 13. Have you noticed that some of the names of the new immigrants are unusual? They have the custom of taking the names of parents or grandparents and mixing them together to create a joint name. In this country people might be named after actors or rock stars – lots of Taylors these days. Or sometimes parents just create a name (with its own imaginative spelling) because they want to give each child a unique identity. I didn’t witness this firsthand but a friend who worked at charity hospital in New Orleans was introduced to Female Jones. “That’s an unusual name, where did you get it?” The Doctor gave it to me. “The doctor?” Yes, when my mother came to pick me up from the maternity ward, I was wearing a wrist band saying, Female Jones. Maybe having the angel giving someone a name is not such a bad idea.
Names are important then. Names matter. A few years ago, Chevrolet couldn’t understand why their new car wasn’t selling in Puerto Rico until someone explained that Nova in Spanish translates as “It doesn’t go.” The current administration is on a naming spree starting with them calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Names can send a message. When Lew Alcindor changed his name to Kareen Abdul Jabbar he wanted us to notice his new identity. Jesus, the name given by the angel, matters. It echoes the name of Joshua who led the people into the promised land. Jesus translates into English as “God saves” so we are to understand right from the get-go that in this newborn child God is at work, saving us, leading us into the land of promised peace and joy.
St. Paul tells us in the epistle to the Galatians that Jesus saves us by including us in the family, the family of God. Jesus came so we might receive adoption as children of God, and if children heirs of the divine promise. So those of us here have a name in common – Christian. The Church urges us, as we begin this new year, to claim the name of Christian. Once we do so we know that nothing out there, no force, no power, can ever take away what we have, the blessed assurance of God’s ever-faithful presence. No matter how things seem, this is still God’s world and we have been named and claimed by God. Here is one New Year’s Resolution we can all make: to live each day with hope for Jesus has already saved us, that God is with us and God never fails.
