Sunday, December 23, 2007

Sermon: "A Boy Named Jesus"

Scripture: Matthew 1: 18-25

Reverend Larry Melvin Gerber

Both the given and symbolic names of Jesus testify that God is with us in our present situations, to make us "networkable" with him.

The naming of a child is important. I was Christened Larry Melvin Gerber. The last name, Gerber, was important because it would carry on the Gerber name, hopefully into the next generation and beyond. Jane and I are exceedingly happy with our three daughters, but we bore no son to carry on the Gerber name. My brother had a son, but he drowned at the age of 7. His oldest daughter had a son out of wedlock. He bears the name Gerber and is the only one to carry our family name forward. He is a special person in the Gerber household.

Back to my name. My mother liked the name Larry, but did not like the name Lawrence. My middle name, Melvin, came from my mother's only sibling, Melvin. Uncle Melvin was special to me, but I was teased in school from the day I started. I was called - Law-re-nce and M-e-l-v-i-n. As the other kids drew out my name I became irritated. I could explain that my name was not Lawrence, but Larry. OK, but the word was out, my middle name was Melvin. It was not a popular name in our school and I got teased over and over.

Things changed dramatically one day. I was 12 years of age when news came to us that Uncle Melvin was killed in a head crash by a drunk driver. The headlines read "Melvin Years, age 37, father of 6 children, ages 5 - 13, was killed today in a violent head crash caused by a drunk driver."

My mother had been proud of my name and I knew that. From that tragic day forward I, at age 12, could stand up and let the world know that my middle name was my Uncle's first name. When I told the tragic story about my uncle, it sent a message to my classmates and neighbor kids that I held that name in high regard. My name was, and is, Larry Melvin Gerber.

Later in life when I went off to college the college kids called me Lawrence. I began by saying my name is Larry, but when they connected my name with Lawrence of Arabia, and when they nicknamed me Sir Lawrence, I almost went for an official name change. They found out my middle name and shortened it to Mel. I liked that name too. Mel Gibson, Mel Tillis, Mel Torme,--..

The naming of a child is important and has deep meaning behind it, at least it did to my mother and father when they named me. Once I understood the logic behind my name I could take any ridicule. My name is important, therefore I am important.

The naming of a child is an important part of the Scripture passage as well. In fact, there are two important names given, both "first" names belonging to the same person, but each helping us to know more about him.

He shall be called Jesus. The reading tells us that before Jesus was born, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, informing him that the child Mary was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that he should not fear to take Mary as his wife. Further, the angel even told Joseph what to name the child -- Jesus.

Jesus was a common name. It was the Bob or Joe or Tom of the first century. We know of one other person in the New Testament itself named Jesus. He was a companion to the apostle Paul and is mentioned in Colossians 4:11 in a list of people sending greetings to the church at Colossae. And Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, mentions no fewer than 20 different men named Jesus.

Thus, the child whom God sent to be the Savior of the world was given a name common to the time and place, one that by itself did not set him apart from the rest of the human race. "Jesus" was the name that would have been entered into whatever official birth records were kept in those days. In the case of this particular child, that name was sometimes used in conjunction with further identifiers, such as Jesus of Nazareth; or Jesus, son of Joseph; or Jesus, son of David (referring to his ancestry), but all these were actual labels referring to the one who was born to Mary around the beginning of the first century A.D. 

Jesus means "God is salvation." The angel who appears to Joseph alludes to that meaning when he says, "... you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." This child was given a name that would be a constant reminder of the saving grace of God.

But, once Matthew has told us what the angel said, he goes on to make his own observation. He tells us that the angel's announcement to Joseph about the divine origin of the child and the naming fulfilled something Isaiah had written about centuries earlier. Matthew then quotes Isaiah 7:14: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel."

In its original context, that statement referred to the fact that the nation of Judah would be delivered from the threat of an invasion by the time a particular young woman of that day gave birth to the child she was already carrying. But Matthew, looking at it through the lens of what he knew about Jesus, saw it also as prophecy. And thus he took the name given to that child born in Isaiah's time, Emmanuel, and applied it symbolically to Jesus.

And that name, Emmanuel, as Matthew hastens to tell us, means "God is with us."

Thus, between his given name, Jesus, and his symbolic name, Emmanuel, this child to be born to Mary makes two important affirmations about God -- that he saves us and that he is with us.

The name Jesus, then, tells us that God is the author of our salvation. But what does that word mean? We so often hear it applied to being forgiven of our sins that we may miss its fuller impact.

One way to understand it is to grasp that God created us to have connection, close association, communion with him. But to have that connection, we have to change and become fit for it. Among the things that make us unfit are our sins and self-centeredness, but when we turn to God, he makes it possible through Jesus for us to change, to become fit for communion with God.

For what God did with Jesus was to send him to move us from where we are, from where we cannot be in communion with God, from where we are separated from God, to where we need to be to sit at the table of fellowship with him in the daily round of life as well as in the kingdom to come.

"God is salvation." That's what the name Jesus means. God is our salvation and Jesus is the way God provided for salvation to come to us.

Jesus' symbolic name, Emmanuel, adds a further dimension to our understanding of God. "God is with us" is a message we need to hear. Our world has layer upon layer of troubles and our own encounters with life are not all sweetness and light either. So the reality of God-being with us is critical.

 When it comes right down to it, however, we are probably less concerned with the fact that God is everywhere than we are with knowing that God is present where we are -- in whatever actual situations we find ourselves. Likewise, it's less important that God can be "accessed" from anywhere than that God will hear us from where we are. The message of Jesus' symbolic name is not that God is everywhere, even though that is true, but that God is here with us. God is to the point, God is specific. God is with us where we are.

When God brings us salvation through Jesus, he makes us fit to be in communion -- in connection -- with him. Salvation makes us "networkable" with God. God's presence ensures that we can access that network from where we specifically are.

My family, and my friends, my colleagues, and others who know the reasoning behind my name seem to have respect. Perhaps the driving force behind that was the impact it had through my uncle's tragic death at an early age. Perhaps respect for my name was through the reasoning behind my mother's pride in her brother. Usually when one stands up for who they are, and lets the world know that their name is important, and that they feel a sense of pride and importance to that name, it will make a difference and just  might have some influence. Whatever the background, a boy named Larry with a middle name Melvin weathered the ridicule and teasing to end up being proud of his name.

 A boy with the common name of Jesus grew up to be ridiculed, spat upon, and finally murdered. But even so, in the naming of Jesus, there were to be two powerful testimonies to remind us of how God comes to us, if we will allow him to. He comes in the common name of Jesus which becomes the very  special name Jesus - He is with us - Emmanuel! No matter what we go through, Jesus is present with us where we are and he comes with salvation.

That's plenty of reason to celebrate the birth of the boy named Jesus.

Let us pray....