The Holy Name of Jesus: 2013
At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was
called Jesus
Prime and
proper Anglo-Saxon folks are shocked by the fact that in Spanish-speaking
cultures the name ‘Jesus’ is not at all an uncommon personal name. It hardly
seems right, rather presumptuous, maybe even blasphemy, to give to any old Tom,
Dick and Harry ‘the Name which is above every other name’ -- ‘the Name at which
every knee shall bow.’ But we forget that when the Son of Mary was given the
name ‘Jesus’ it was a perfectly ordinary name to give a Jewish child.
Archaeologists
have unearthed the tombs of 71 men named Jesus from the period of Jesus' death. The name also
appears 30 times in the Old Testament. The name ‘Jesus’ is derived from the
Greek version of the Hebrew name ‘Joshua.’ You might even say that this name
was perfectly predictable, given that Joshua was a national hero of the Jews.
Joshua had taken the reins after the death of Moses and led God’s people into
the promised land.
When it came to
the Name of God, it was a different matter for the Jews. Jacob tried to wrestle
God’s name out him and got a dislocated hip out of it. Moses was more successful
but he had to take his shoes off and stand of hallowed ground to hear God say
that his Name was “Yahweh”—that mysterious Name “He Who Is”. This Name was so holy that it could not even
be spoken out loud but the Name ‘Adonai’ ‘the Lord’ had to be substituted for
it.
In early Church
the Name of Jesus was a name of power and might. “The name above all other
names” “the Name at which every knee must bow”. It was the Name which saves; “the
only Name given by which men must be saved’ St. Peter preached: the Name which
cast out demons, which heals. Above all the Name of Jesus is the Name of the
Lord. It is rare outside of the Gospels that the Name of Jesus stands alone: it
Jesus Christ, Jesus the Lord, etc.
But in the
Middle Ages, the 13th and 14th something new happened. The thing that preachers like St. Bernard of Clairvaux
and St. Bernadine of Sienna proclaimed about the Holy Name was its intimacy. It
was the age which produced a renewed sense of the humanity of Jesus, the same
age which produced St. Francis of Assisi and his Christmas manger. An age not
of Platonic idealism but of Aristotelian realism. Jesus was not so much the
terrible judge who ruled from the tympanum of the Romanesque Cathedrals but a
baby, a crucified man, a man whose name we know just as we know the names of
all our friends.
This too is
part of the mystery of the Incarnation: “No longer do I call you servants, for a
servant does not know what his master is doing, I have called you friends.” To be
sure Jesus is not just our pal but to call him by his Name, to invoke Him in
our prayers, to visit him in the Blessed Sacrament, to simply say His Name is to
know that he is for us men and for our salvation. A New Years Resolution: to
turn to Jesus, to speak to him as a friend, to be with him and come what may in
the this year to know that he is with us.
At the end of eight days,
when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus
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