Reverend Ref +

ADVENT IV - YEAR A

What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, would it not? Todd is an old English word for fox. Joelene is the feminine of Joel and means "Yahweh is God." Philip comes from the Greek phil and hippos, meaning "friend of horses." Philip was also one of the twelve apostles. John comes from the Greek Johannes, which in turn comes from the Hebrew Yochanan, and means "God is gracious." Jane, Jan & Janet are feminizations of John. George comes from the Greek ge, meaning earth, and ergon, meaning worker; earth worker, or farmer. And Dorothy is a form of Dorothea; Doron meaning gift, and thea meaning of God. Dorothy means "Gift of God."

Why all of this focus on names? Matthew, remember, was written for both the Jews and the Gentiles. He was trying to deal with the tension between the two groups, between the old and the new. And Matthew did a lot with names. His genealogy of Jesus named the royal line. He includes Abraham and David and Solomon and Ahaz and Hezekiah. All this to show that Jesus was the royal Davidic Messiah.

But notice who else he includes: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law; Judah being one of the eleven brothers of Joseph. After her two husbands died, she prostituted herself to Judah and eventually gave birth to twins; one of which is in the direct lineage of Jesus. Rahab was a professional prostitute in Jericho who hid a few Israelite spies and was saved during that city’s destruction. Ruth was a Moabite, a foreigner, who, depending on how you read the story, seduced Boaz. And Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, had an affair with King David.

Matthew includes the names of women, prostitutes, adulteresses and outsiders in the lineage of Jesus. Their names help show that Jesus is not only the Davidic Messiah, the Messiah of Israel, but that Jesus has ties to the outsider, the Gentile, the impure, the Other. These names show that Jesus came to save everybody, not just a select few.

And names play an important part in today’s gospel. An angel appears to Joseph and tells him to name the baby Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Jesus was a relatively common name, lots of people had it. In fact, it was Jesus Barabbas who was released by Pilate. In Hebrew, this name is pronounced Yeshua. It’s the same name as Joshua, the leader of the Israelites after the death of Moses. It was Joshua who attacked Jericho but spared the life of Rahab. The meaning of Yeshua is "Yahweh is salvation."

Yahweh is salvation. "You will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins." And isn’t this exactly what happened? Jesus forgave people of their sins and ultimately died on the cross for our sins.

But Matthew also uses another name: Emmanuel. The angel tells Joseph to name the kid Jesus, and Matthew says that this is to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of a virgin birth whose child will be called Emmanuel. I don’t know about you, but Jesus and Emmanuel don’t even sound close. It seems like Matthew is stretching things a bit.

Emmanuel, though, means "God is with us." Notice something important here, though. Isaiah’s prophecy says that the woman will call him Immanuel. Matthew, however, changes this to say that THEY shall name him Emmanuel. They. The others who recognize that Jesus is God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity. They who recognize that God is with them in flesh and blood. They. Us. We name him Emmanuel.

This name is given at the beginning of the gospel, and "God is with us" plays throughout the whole story. And finally, Matthew comes full circle and ties everything together at the end of his gospel. For what are the last words of Jesus according to Matthew? "I am with you always, to the end of the age."

What’s in a name? For Matthew, and for us apparently, everything.