The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.
Numbers 6:22-27, NRSV*
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Luke 2:15-21, NRSV*
It’s a rite of passage. At some point every junior high or high school student learns the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. For me it happened in the ninth grade. Each student was called into the office of the ninth grade English teacher, Mrs. Cooper, and told to recite the balcony scene by heart. I was ready; I had learned it faithfully and recited it hundreds of times. But there was a problem. I had rehearsed it at the rate of approximately two hundred and fifty words per minute, and to go slower was to risk the performance falling apart completely. Basically, I had perfected a reading of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet in two minutes or less, destroying any dramatic element in the process. Surprisingly, a few lines from the scene do still linger in my memory, probably more as a result of the Brady Bunch episode in which Marsha tries out for the role of Juliet than as a result of my ninth grade English class.
You may recall the story. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, but they belong to different families—the Capulets and the Montagues—who are engaged in a long-term feud. Distraught by the seemingly impossible predicament this feud imposes upon the two lovers, Juliet wanders onto her balcony and says what may be the most famous lines from the play: “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet. ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy. … What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” Of course, we find that the names the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet carry do, in fact, make a tragic difference in their fate, as at the end of the play they lay dead in each other’s arms.
Now granted, that’s an extreme case of names affecting the course of one’s life. But psychologists have shown that names do still matter in today’s society. One study revealed that the letters in our name have an effect on career choices—people tend to choose a career path that resembles their first name. For example, more people named Dennis are dentists and more people named Lauras are lawyers than would be predicted by a statistical projection based on the popularity of those names and those professions.[1] There’s also a link between one’s last name and professional success. Economists have found that academics with last names beginning with letters early in the alphabet are markedly more likely to work in prestigious university departments and win a Nobel Prize. Whether it’s the alphabetical listing of authors on a scientific paper or just the class roster, we’re used to associating things at the top of the list with success. The bottom line: Names matter.
It’s something to think about on this day, January 1st, the Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord. This feast day comes eight days after the Feast of the Nativity. In Jewish Law, each male was to be circumcised at eight days of age, and it was customary to name the child at that time. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph followed this practice: “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21, NRSV).
This feast was traditionally celebrated in the Church as the Feast of the Circumcision but, perhaps due to some discomfort with either the name of the feast or the image it brought to mind, January 1st is now celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Name. The name Jesus is from the Hebrew Joshua or Yehoshua, meaning “Yahweh is salvation” or “Yahweh will save.” This feast invites us to reflect on this holy name, Jesus, on what that name means to and for us, on the very nature of our salvation.
Throughout the history of the Church, the name Jesus has been the foundation of many prayers, devotional practices, and meditations. This name holds within it many rich images and meanings—humility and majesty, discernment and pardon, the Incarnation and the Transfiguration, the Nativity and the Ascension, the word and the wine, our beginning and our end. The richness and breadth of meaning carried by the name Jesus is not just a cause for veneration. It’s also a source of challenge, since we, as Christians, bear his name and share in his ministry.
Looking back, we find in the Judeo-Christian tradition that naming has always been a mark of belonging, of sharing in God’s purpose and love; the two are inseparable. We see it in the ritual of circumcision. Circumcision was and is for Jewish people a ritual of belonging; it signifies that they are covenant people of God. This association between naming and belonging continues in the Christian tradition. Traditionally, a child receives their Christian name at baptism—the moment when he or she becomes a member of God’s holy and catholic church. Naming and belonging go hand in hand.
But we are not just talking about our individual names here. Because just as God’s name was placed on the Israelites, the name of Christ is given to us at our baptism. As the priest makes the mark of the cross on our forehead, the priest says: “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” The name of Christ is placed on us forever. We spend the rest of our lives growing into our baptism, finding out what it means for us to belong to Christ and to bear his name. That’s why the Feast of the Holy Name is not only a celebration for the Church but also a challenge. On this day we can’t help but ask the question: What does it look like for my life to bear witness to this holy name?
So on New Year’s Day, a day when we try to rename ourselves by making resolutions about what our life will be like in the coming year and how it will be different, let’s not lose sight of the name that shapes us more than any other, the naming that took place in our baptism, the name that is the source of our salvation, the name by which we have been sealed as God’s forever—the holy name of Jesus.
[1] As cited in the article by Alice Robb, If Your Name is Denis, You’re More Likely to Become a Dentist: The Strange Science of How Names Shape Careers, New Republic website, https://newrepublic.com/article/116140/psychologists-say-our-names-affect-what-careers-we-choose.
* New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
An Honest Hope 