New Year's Day
God has spoken His Word and the universe has come to be. He has breathed into the nostrils of a man formed from mud, and Adam has become a living being. He has executed mighty judgments against Pharaoh and delivered His people from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
He has delivered His people from every evil. He has destroyed all her enemies. He has given her every good gift imaginable since the days when the dew of creation was still moist upon the ground.
And now, in this text, He is eight days old. He cannot speak. He cannot walk. He cannot feed or clean Himself. He is seeing His creation through human eyes for the very first time. The Creator is utterly depending on those who from the days in the Garden have despised His Law, cast aside His gifts, and turned their backs to His love.
Now the Creator receives His Name. But it is not given to Mary or Joseph to name the Creator of the Universe. No. By His angel Gabriel, the Creator has given to His parents the Name He will receive. He has given it to them even before He takes flesh from the womb of His mother.
Jesus. It's not much of a name, really, is it? It seems like we should call him something more than just these two syllables. Something that gets at who He really is. Something that gets at the divine majesty.
We want a name that will fill the room that hears it. When the Name of God is spoken, something special should happen. The building should shake. The universe should pause a moment and take notice. But none of that happens when we say Jesus. It's a small name. A simple name. It's the name of a little baby who's nursing at His mother's breast. It's the name of a little man who is crying as the knife circumcises him.
But if Jesus was not His Name, if His Name was a word whose majesty matched the One that bears it, who would be able to speak it? Our lips would melt with the power of it. Mountains would quake at the sound of it. The universe marred by sin would crumble at a name that expressed the power of the Creator of the Universe.
But Jesus has just the right name. His parents probably pronounced it Yeshua, the Lord saves. And this name”Jesus, name above all names” is the one that same Lord gives Himself.
In the Garden the Lord saves Adam and Eve by promising His defeat of Satan on the altar of the cross. In Egypt the Lord saves His people by executing mighty judgments against Pharaoh and the false gods of Egypt. Once He brings them into Canaan, the Lord saves His people time and again by raising up for them deliverers who free them from the bondage of evil kings.
But finally, in the fullness of time, Jesus is become man, born of a virgin. No more does the Lord save by giving a promise His people will die hoping to see. No more does the Lord save by raising up a deliverer who will give his people rest for a decade or two.
Now as the Lord of Creation sucks His thumb, Satan and all his demons scream in terror. There's a new thing happening in Bethlehem, and Satan knows it's not good when his Enemy takes on human flesh. The Lord is now saving His people by becoming one of them!
Satan, like us, wants Jesus to be the man upstairs, not the baby who cries under the blade of circumcision. If He's up in heaven, far away from you, your pain, your daily routines, then He can be remote from your heart and your mind also.
We like to have gods, but we don't want Jesus. We'd much rather have the sort of god you never see. Pray to him every now and then, especially when you want something. Obey his Law if it's in line with what you want to do. Listen to the nice stories and feel good about yourself.
But a God who actually involves Himself in your life, who unites Himself to you with real body and blood, who puts His name on you, no, that's not the God you want. It's inconvenient. It's downright rude. Jesus, stay in heaven where you belong!
But Jesus butts in. He sees you suffer in your flesh, so he takes on that flesh. He sees you dying from your sin, so he takes that sin too. He sees you suffer attacks from Satan on your body, your life, your family, and those you love, so He puts Himself firmly in front of the bullseye Satan's shooting at.
The Lord saves, and since that's how He sees Himself, we don't get to have the kind of Jesus we want to have. He is active in history. He gets His hands dirty from the very beginning when He forms Adam from the dust of the ground. It is His mighty hand and His outstretched arm that parts the Red Sea.
The Lord saves. That is His name. And so we sing of His marvelous deeds. Deeds like baptism, when He puts His very name on you. God's own child I gladly say it! I am baptized into Christ. Deeds like giving Himself in His Body and Blood. An aweful Mystery is here.
Deeds like growing into a man, a man strong enough to bear the scourge of the Romans, to carry His cross up Golgotha, and to forgive you your sins as He allows them to kill Him.
Jesus. The Lord saves. The Name the Eternal Son has given Himself. It is a good name, a name we may call upon in every moment.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Amen.
