Holy Name, Year B, Sun Jan 1, 2012

Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:15-21

What’s in a name? Well, quite a lot. The old nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”, may be a psychologically healthy sentiment, but name-calling can hurt. Names can also suggest authority, prestige, responsibility, and many positive traits or hopes for a newborn child.

The name “Jesus” was given to Mary’s child by the angel at the Annunciation, and it is pronounced “Jeshua” in Hebrew. “Jeshua” means “the one who saves”. For Jesus, it meant that he was “born to set the people free”, and not only born but even named as the one who would “save”. Growing up with the name “Savior” might have been a very heavy burden to carry such a name, for anyone else except the Son of God.

In recent weeks we’ve been talking about another heavy name: the title of “bishop”. As we anticipate the visitation of Bishop Andrew next week, I think we all have some feelings of awe and anticipation and even nervousness about “The Bishop” being here. I imagine the name “bishop” isn’t born easily for those who carry it, either.

There is a part of the ordination service for a bishop, which is included by tradition, but is not recorded in the Book of Common Prayer. Some of us witnessed this prelude to the service when Bishop Andrew was ordained. Before the service started, he stood outside the cathedral with the doors locked, not yet wearing all the episcopal regalia, but only a simple white alb.

He knocked loudly on the locked door of the cathedral, and proclaimed that he was the bishop-elect of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, so “let me in”, or words to that effect. But they didn’t open the door. Then he knocked a second time, and said something like, “I am a priest of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, so let me enter”. Again, they did not open the door. Then he said, “I am Andrew, a child of God”, and then the doors were opened, and the service could begin.

He entered into this new responsibility and ministry while carrying not only the new name of “The Right Reverend Lord Bishop”, but also well reminded that he could only bear that new name as “Andrew, child of God”.

This past week, on Tuesday, the Church celebrated the feast day of St. John the Evangelist, who was also called: “the disciple whom Jesus loved” or the “Beloved Disciple”. I had always assumed that Jesus loved him because he was such a sweet and gentle young man. When I painted an icon of “The Beloved Disciple”, I showed John as a very young man, perhaps even in his late teens, with his head resting on Jesus, and Jesus as a father figure to him.

What was it like, I wonder, to be called “the disciple whom Jesus loved”? That name might have been tinged with jealousy, because Jesus seemed to love John the best.

But we also hear that Jesus gave the name “sons of thunder” to John and his brother James. This implies that maybe they were not such quiet, sweet, gentle boys after all! Maybe they were loud, impetuous, and rambunctious. Maybe they were the kind of brothers who get into enough trouble by themselves, but feed off each other and get into even more trouble when they are together. Maybe Jesus had James and John with him on special occasions, such as the Transfiguration, not because they were the most honored, but to keep an eye on them! In another day and age, might Jesus have called them “double trouble”.

Perhaps, when John was called “the one whom Jesus loved”, it wasn’t because he was the most handsome, sweet, loveable disciple. It could be that John, the “son of thunder”, was driving everyone nuts, and in spite of this, Jesus loved him anyway. Perhaps it was in amazement, rather than envy, that they called him “the one whom Jesus loved”!

John grew up in Jesus’s love and acceptance, and perhaps Jesus saw in him the potential to put all that thunderous energy into becoming an evangelist, poet, and mystic. Perhaps John gradually outgrew his exasperating and impetuous behavior. Perhaps he finally grew into adulthood when Jesus was dying on the cross, and Jesus entrusted him with the care of his aging mother

According to tradition, John did not die a martyr, like the other disciples, and over the years he would have witnessed the persecutions, martyrdoms, and growth of church. Perhaps he was one of very few to have been close associates of Jesus to live into old age and to see the establishment and spread of the Church. We believe that he lived to write the Gospel of John, and the letters of John, and the Book of Revelation may well have been inspired by his visions.

Since he was a mystic, I don’t think John would mind if we speculate even a bit further about how the names “son of thunder” and “beloved disciple” affected him. As he grew into old age, perhaps John the obstreperous, became a sweet and gentle old man, after all, because, through Jesus, he knew the power of God’s unconditional love.

I imagine him as a gentle old man, with a long white beard, wrapped in robe even on a warm day. When people would come to see him, they would listen in hushed silence as he told of Jesus in metaphor and poetic images. At the end of their visit, the people might ask for his final words of advice to the churches. And John would say, in a slow, husky, shaky voice, with just a little echo of the old thunder: “Little children, love one another.”

The name “son of thunder” had been given in love, and John knew that he was loved undeservedly and unconditionally. He knew that he was beloved among all the children of God, and so that thunder was transformed into a passion for faith in Jesus Christ.

We also bear a special name, along with our baptismal names and our family names. We all bear the name of “Christian, a name which we can live into over time, and perhaps only partly and imperfectly ever achieve.

God is not yet finished with any of us; like John, we also are works in progress. The finishing and polishing comes during the course of a lifetime, and comes through receiving the name of “Christian”, over and over, and through pondering and treasuring this name in our hearts. May we always bear this name in faithfulness and humility, knowing that whatever other names we bear, we also are children of God and loved beyond measure.