The Holy Name
Today, January 1, which is celebrated as New Year’s Day throughout the world, is, on the church calendar, the Feast of the Holy Name. Jewish boys were named and circumcised eight days after their birth (Genesis 17:9-14). Scripture tells us that Mary and Joseph had Jesus circumcised and named after his eighth day (Luke 2:21). The name Jesus, of course, means, “God saves” or “God’s salvation.” On the Feast of the Holy Name, then, we celebrate that, in Jesus, God saves us, confessing with Paul in Philippians 2 that “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:8-11).
At Christ Church, then, as we enter this New Year, let us be marked, both in word and in deed, by the Holy Name of Jesus, the name by which God has painfully and beautifully saved his beloved creation. I’m looking forward to what God will do in and through us in 2016 as we know more and more what it means that, as we heard in the reading from Titus 2 on Christmas Eve, “ the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all” (Titus 2:11).
Peace,
Chris