Named Jesus

A week old. Tiny fingers, a soft cry, a family gathered close. And then the moment every parent waits for. Saying his name out loud for the first time. Jesus.

A week has passed in Bethlehem since the night the baby was laid in a manger. The shepherds have gone back to their flocks, praising God. The crowds from the registration may be thinning out. Mary is recovering, and learning, like every new mother, how to feed and soothe and care for her son. Joseph is looking after them both. And now the eighth day has come. For a Jewish family, that day was special. It was the day a baby boy received the sign of God's covenant, and, by custom, the day he was named.

Luke tells it in one sentence. “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS.” Circumcision was the sign God had given to Abraham, many centuries before. It marked a boy as belonging to God's people, part of the promise God had made. So by this act, Mary and Joseph were saying: our son is a child of Abraham, a son of Israel, under God's law. Jesus was not born outside the story of God's people. He was born right in the middle of it.

Then comes the name. Usually the family would discuss it. Should he be named after his father, his grandfather, an uncle? But this name was never up for discussion. Luke says it was the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Months earlier, Gabriel had told Mary, you shall call his name Jesus. And in a dream, an angel had told Joseph the same. So on this day, Mary and Joseph did not choose. They obeyed. They gave their son the name God had already chosen.

And what a name it is. In Hebrew it is Yeshua, a form of Joshua. It means the Lord saves. The angel had told Joseph why: he will save his people from their sins. Every time Mary called her little boy in for supper, every time Joseph taught him to hold a tool, every time his friends shouted for him in the village street, they were saying the same words: the Lord saves. His name was his mission. And he carried it from his eighth day onwards.

Jesus was a fairly common name in his time. It was the Greek form of Joshua, the name of the leader who took over from Moses and brought Israel into the promised land. The Jewish historian Josephus mentions several different men called Jesus, including a high priest. So when the angel chose this name, he chose an ordinary name for an ordinary-looking baby. What made it extraordinary was who carried it.

You'll find the naming of Jesus in Luke chapter two, verse twenty-one. A family keeping God's law, and parents giving their son the name heaven had chosen. So here is a question to carry with you. When you say the name Jesus, the Lord saves, what does it mean to you?