What is His Name?

“Mary will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

Names were important in the Bible.  Often they associated someone with their family heritage.  God often told the prophets to name their children as a message—Isaiah named one of his children, “A remnant shall return.”  Here, an angel tells Joseph to name this child Jesus—which means “The Lord saves.”  

There are three questions we’ve looked at so far in this Advent series:  

“How can I be sure?”—asked by Zechariah

“How will this be?”—asked by Mary

“Where is he?”—asked by the Magi

These are the questions of our neighbors, co-workers, and classmates who may not know of Jesus, or are not seeking to follow Him.  Let’s recall:  before any of us took a step of faith, we wanted to be sure, we wanted to understand how it all works, and we wanted to know where to go.  The questions asked in the Christmas story are our questions too.  

The “what” of the name Jesus answers the “Why.”  God sent Jesus into the world to save.  Some of us might feel we don’t need saving, but we do.  The things we’ve done and said, the things done to us that we can’t fix.  The things we regret and have left undone.  All of us need rescue from the rumination about what might have been.    

This Christmas season, let’s remember the name—His Name is Jesus.  Let’s remember the why.

Grace and peace,

David

“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” Matthew 2:12

“Where are you, God?”  This might be one of the quintessential questions of the human condition.  We ask it in times of uncertainty and sadness.  We ask it in times where we need wisdom and assurance.  We ask it because we cannot see God face-to-face, or we cannot feel His presence.  

The Christmas story records this question too.  But the people asking it WOULD indeed see God face-to-face. It is a group of Magi—traditionally called Wise Men—traveling from another country and culture, asking where they can find the newborn king, so they can pay homage and present gifts to Him.  They literally wanted to know the place and time.  And they found Him, lying in a manger.  The Magi glimpsed the good news of the gospel—that God Himself would come to us in Jesus Christ from the heavenly places, giving up glory and experiencing the joys and sorrows of being human.  He came to save us, and it all started in an unlikely place.

Let’s be honest:  in the busyness of this season, it can be easy to lose sight of God.  It is possible to fill our calendars and to-do lists with so much that we might ask, “Where is God in all of this?”  

The answer is:  you can find God in the story of Christmas.   God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son.  Born in Bethlehem, born in a manger.   When humanity was crying out to find God, God came to find us.  

Grace and peace,

David

Mary asked the angel, “How will this be?” Luke 1:34

The Christmas story is unusual. Last week, I wrote about God doing something out of the ordinary with Zechariah and Elizabeth, the couple who would raise John the Baptist—the one set apart to prepare the way for Jesus. Now, God sends an angel to Mary.

With Mary, we get another question in the Christmas story. “How will this be?” Or, “How can this happen?” Mary goes on to literally say, “Since I have not known a man?” There is a “usual way” of a child being conceived and born. God chooses a one-of-a-kind way. God’s Holy Spirit will “overshadow” Mary—the Greek word is a word that also gets used in Acts 1:8–“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” Then, to emphasize the unusual ways of God’s work, the angel tells Mary that her relative Elizabeth is going to have a child, even in her old age. As if to say, “God is doing a lot of strange things!”

Mary isn’t the only one to ask the question, “How can this happen?” In the gospel of John, there’s the story of a man named Nicodemus, who asks that kind of question, not once, but twice. Is it out of that conversation with questions that Jesus says these famous words: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Because we tell and re-tell the Christmas story every year, it can be easy to gloss over the unusual parts of the story.  We can miss the fact that the characters in the center of the Christmas story had real questions! As we share this story with our family, neighbors, co-workers and classmates, let’s not dismiss the fact that they might have questions!  “How could God become one of us?”  The “how” is certainly hard to explain.  The “why” is simpler:  Because of His great love for us.

Let’s not miss the wonder and miracle of all of this.  

Grace and peace,

David