Dear friends in Christ: In the late nineteenth century a European diplomat serving in Egypt stumbled upon a rare find—a half-dozen ancient books. The style of the manuscripts ancient Greek handwriting suggested they had been written sometime between 100 and 400 A.D. Their great age and excellent condition made these books valuable, but when scholars turned their attention to the content of the writings they realized the find was one of a kind and quite weird.
The books contained paragraph after paragraph of nonsense words made up entirely of vowel sounds, strange sketches and occult diagrams, and most significantly these manuscripts contained page after page of names. These were the names of gods and goddesses, angels and demons, all pagan names but even a few Jewish ones.
The books contained dozens of magical spells. These were the handbooks of ancient Greek magicians, teaching sorcerers how to harness the power of the supernatural for their paying clients. There were spells for good health, fair weather, and success in love or for your favorite greyhound at the race track. There were curses upon personal enemies, business rivals, and former lovers. And the keys to unlock all of this supernatural power, the magicians believed, were in the names of all these gods and demons. In the ancient Mediterranean world of Greece and Rome, magic was everywhere. It was believed that the power, the very essence of a being resided in its name. And knowledge of a supernatural name gave power. Magicians and common people alike assumed that if they could only learn the name of a god or a demon, they had a chance of manipulating the deity to serve their own purposes. Hence, the spells of ancient magicians often included hundreds of these supernatural names. It was the hope that at least one of these names would hit its target and force a supernatural being to bring about the goal of the spell.
The Old Testament lesson gives us the Aaronic benediction, which we use as the final blessing to end our public worship services. And just what is the subject of this blessing? The name “Lord” (or Yahweh) appears three times, recalling God’s identity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The full revelation of the name would have to wait until the New Testament. This is the identity of the Lord as one God in three persons. This is what is present in this benediction. And what about the verbs, you English buffs? Do not they all indicate blessings that God places upon Israel? They verbs say that God shall Bless you, Keep you, Shine upon you, Be gracious, Lift up His countenance, and Give you peace. So where God’s name is spoken, there He is present to bless you. His name is His presence, for where His name is invoked, there He is to bless.
The name of God is recalled in the first reference to worship in Genesis 4:25-27, “Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” And who are the objects of this blessing?... the people of Israel. Just after this blessing, the Lord said that the priests shall put His name upon the people of Israel, and that He will bless them. So when we hear this blessing at the end of our worship services we know that God is here, lifting us out of the depths of our sin and giving us life in His name. O Lord, our Lord how excellent is Your name in all the earth for You have placed it upon your people to bless them, to keep them, and to give them peace.
Now let us turn briefly to the other significance of the day of first of January in conjunction with the Holy Name of Jesus. Luther gives us some initial insight of his times on the day. Dr. Luther preached in a sermon on New Year’s Day, saying, “On this day it is customary to distribute new year’s gifts from the pulpit, as if one did not have enough useful and beneficial matters to preach about, and it were necessary to hand out such useless tales instead of the word of God and to turn this serious office into a game and a joke. The Gospel demands that our sermon be about the circumcision and the name Jesus, and we are going to observe this. “Let us, first, ask that smart woman, Madam Jezebel, natural reason: Is it not foolish, ridiculous, futile that God demands circumcision? Could he find no other part of the body except this one? If Abraham had followed reason in this matter, he would not have believed that it was God who demanded such a thing from him; to our mind it is always a most foolish thing—there could hardly be a more foolish one. In addition, the Israelites suffered a great deal of humiliation and shame because of it. They were despised by all the world because of it and were almost considered to be an abomination. Moreover, there is absolutely no good in it; what purpose is served by injuring the body? It does not make a person any better, since everything depends upon the soul.”
The name of the Lord is fulfilled in Jesus’ circumcision and naming ceremony in today’s Gospel lesson. Following the instructions given in the Old Covenant, Mary and Joseph went to the local synagogue at Bethlehem on the eighth day of Jesus’ life. Why the eighth day? Some have claimed that it was primarily to make sure the boy was strong enough to handle the bloodshed of circumcision. However, consider this: The eighth day indicates a new creation.
Recall the original seven days of creation, recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis, when God made all that exists out of nothing and by the power of His Word. Later, God again made His creation through the flood, where eight souls were saved by water. And then recall how it is was St. Peter who connects the eight faithful in the ark with holy baptism: “Eight persons were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you” (1 Peter 3:20, 21). So the eighth day is the day that God makes all things new, reclaims His people as His own, and once again brings light out of darkness.
Thus, it was on the eighth day that Jesus was circumcised. In the Old Testament, circumcision was the special mark given to God’s people, His “baptism” by which He claimed His people. On the Law side, the foreskin symbolized rebellion against God. Although Sampson and King David were circumcised, the foreskin was still a reminder that from it evil lusts arose. Sampson failed to recall His circumcision and fell to the seductress Delilah; David forgot His covenant and took another woman to his bed. And even we ourselves may have committed adultery in the heart and desired illicit sex. The foreskin is a reminder that humans and their sexuality have fallen into sin and need to be spiritually circumcised, with a circumcision not made of hands, and to live in the daily circumcision of repentance in the New Covenant. But you still ask, Why was Jesus, as the sinless Son of God, circumcised? It was to keep the law for us. Recall that Jesus was born not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. We have broken God’s law by our fault, by our own fault. If you think you can keep any law, spiritually, well then just try to even remember the mundane New Year’s resolutions you made just last year. If your experience with these resolutions is anything like mine, they only serve to help bring you to repentance and remind you that no one, but Jesus Himself, can keep the Law. And today should remind you that the fulfillment of the law began with His shedding His blood in circumcision.
Along with His circumcision, the Christ Child was officially given the name Jesus, Savior. This was according to the instruction given to Joseph through the angel that Mary will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. The name of Jesus is the very Gospel. It is the New Covenant form of the Old Testament name “Joshua,” meaning the Lord saves. This was the name of the man chosen to lead the conquest of the Promised Land. And so Jesus, as the new and last Joshua, would lead His people out of the wilderness of sin, through the Jordan of Holy Baptism, and into the Promised Land of Heaven. Left to ourselves, we only rebel against God. On our own, we have gone our own way, been our own gods, and worshiped the various golden calves, and called upon various names to help us. By nature we deserve every punishment the impenitent Israelites received in the wilderness, but the Holy Name of Jesus proclaims that, through this eight day old child, there is indeed salvation. By His perfect obedience (including the passive obedience of His circumcision); His baptism in the Jordan; His temptation in the wilderness; by His suffering, crucifixion and burial; by His glorious resurrection and bodily ascension, there exists no other name whereby there is salvation.
That same Holy Name is given to you in your Baptism. Today’s Epistle reminds us that “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ.” Baptism is your “Eighth Day.” That was the day that God saved you in the Ark of Christendom, which is many baptismal fonts are made in the shape of an octagon, having eight sides. Baptism is the perfect replacement of circumcision, that special means by which you are born from above (or born again) by water and the Spirit. God has claimed you as His very own since you possess the Holy Name of Jesus by virtue of your baptism into His name. And of special interest you should know that baptism is the bestowal of God’s full name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And where His name is spoken, there He is to bless and keep us as His own children.
It’s just like the Aaronic blessing and the circumcision of Jesus. The eternal Son of God is the subject; He is the One who comes to you because you cannot come to Him. You are the objects, the recipients, the ones who become sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. So, the Holy Names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is inscribed upon your hearts in holy baptism.
And you are here again today to hear the Word of forgiveness in Jesus’ name. And yet there is always some tension in celebrating New Year’s Day of 2020. Some may call it a New Year’s Day worship service and others may call it The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. However, I’ve come to see that these two occasions go hand in glove. As the church, we rejoice that the Holy Name is preached for the salvation of souls throughout the earth; as citizens of heaven, we rejoice that “Our God our help in ages past” will be “our Guard while troubles last and our eternal home” (TLH 123 v.8). And the common theme is this: God’s Divine name permeates the entire Christian life, from baptism to eternal life. As the Blessed Virgin Mary herself said, “His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation.”
Unlike the empty and powerless names invoked by those pagan magicians so long ago on the banks of the Nile, the Holy Name of Jesus is truly a name of divine power. The demons of Hell quake at the mention of the name of Jesus. The darkness can hide nowhere from the Light that entered the world at Bethlehem. When confronted by the power of the Incarnation, God’s saving power was made known was given a name, the Name above all names! And the day is coming, my Christian friends, when our Lord will make Death our final enemy, His footstool, and all creatures will join every other being in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, bending knee in submission to the One whose name is above all names – the Holy name Jesus.
“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!” Amen.
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