What's in a Name?

John 1:29-42
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 16, 2005)

When my family and I arrived here fourteen-and-a-half years ago, one of the first decisions I had to make was what to name this new congregation we were here to start.

Actually, I agonized over this. It seemed very important to me. That’s because not long before arriving, I’d read about how one member of Community Church of Joy, a Lutheran congregation out in Arizona, had come to join the congregation. He had just gone through a painful divorce, when he stumbled onto one of the congregation’s advertisements. He’d never seen the word joy in the name of a church before. So, he decided to check it out. He stayed.

I wanted the name of this congregation to be like joy: Biblical and compelling. Friendship fit the bill.

It was Biblical. Jesus called His followers not His servants or His slaves, but His friends. The Old Testament patriarch of the Jewish people, Abraham, was referred to as a friend of God. And both the New Testament's Gospel of Luke and Acts were addressed to a man named Theophilus, which means, friend of God.

I thought that the name was also compelling. Friendship is, after all, friendly word, conveying warmth and hospitality, the very things that the Bible says we Christians are to share with strangers and one another.

And you know, it’s interesting. Through the years, one of the things that new members have consistently said about Friendship Church is how warm and welcoming and friendly the people of Friendship are. All sinners, every last one of us, are welcome. I think that our name has something to do with that warmth and friendliness. I believe that people looking for the friendship of God and of others come here and together, we find it.

Not to plagiarize Shakespeare, but what exactly is in a name? In Biblical times, names and nicknames meant a lot. Parents dubbed their children with names that came from their family trees or that reflected some attribute the child seemed to display during pregnancy or early in life.

Names were so important to people in Biblical times that they would sometimes change them after an encounter with God or some new experience of God.

Just this past week, during my devotion time I was rereading the Bible’s account of Jacob, the son of Isaac. Jacob was a piece of work and that’s not a compliment. His name, Jacob, means something like, one who grabs the heel. According to the Bible, Jacob, who was a twin, grabbed his brother Esau’s heel just as Esau was about to go down the birth canal. In doing so, Jacob supplanted his brother to become the first-born himself. It set the tone for much of the rest of Jacob’s life because he was almost always a heel himself. He was always scheming to gain advantages, assuming that others, even God, were out to get him.

One night, sleeping alone beneath the stars, Jacob wrestled with God or with an angel sent by God. He wrestled for blessings that God wants to give freely when people will simply stand aside and allow God to bless them. That night, God gave Jacob a new name: Israel, which means, one who contends.

Even today, names can define us. I remember reading once about a boy who barely made the high school baseball team. He was slow. But without a trace of irony or putdown, his coach nicknamed the kid, Speedy. This boy never set any land speed records. But by the end of the season, he had become one of the fastest base-runners on the team. What had changed? He’d been given a new name by someone who believed in him and he proceeded to live up to it all!

In our Bible lesson for today, we find several different names being used of Jesus. Each tells us something about Him.

At the beginning of the lesson, John the Baptist is near the Jordan River, baptizing those who are turning from sin and turning to God, when he looks up and sees Jesus. “Here,” John says, “is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!”

The meaning of that name for Jesus, Lamb of God, would have been absolutely clear to everyone who heard John that day. Every year on Yom Kippur, the great Jewish day of atonement, an unblemished lamb would be slaughtered on the temple altar. The lamb represented the people of Israel and it took the rightful punishment for their sin, which is death. But Jesus came to be the perfect Lamb Who secured forgiveness and new life for us, in a phrase repeatedly used in the book of Hebrews, “once and for all.”

But Jesus is more than just the Lamb of God. When two of John the Baptist’s followers--or, disciples, or students--hear what John has to say about Jesus the next day, they follow Jesus. “Rabbi, Teacher” they say to Him, “where are you staying?” Jesus says, “Come and see.”

Jesus proved to be a great teacher because it's been my experience that the best teachers always invite their students to, "Come and see!"

I was fortunate all the way through my years as a student to have had some great teachers. Every time I was in their class rooms, they opened up new worlds to us. They were always prompting us to, “Come and see. Learn. Stretch. Become your better self.” Dorothy Everett, my fourth grade teacher was like this. So was my senior English Composition teacher at Columbus West High School, Rosemary Leuchter; Stan Swart, my History instructor for my first two quarters at Ohio State; and Bruce Schein, one of my New Testament professors at Trinity Seminary.

They all had two things in common: They cared for us and they challenged us to be our very best!

Jesus, our Rabbi, our Teacher, is the ultimate expression of those two attributes.

He cares for us. That’s why He went to a cross.

And He challenges us to be our very best because He knows how badly sin has marred us, but also that when His power and forgiveness and newness are surging through our lives, He makes us new creatures, capable of living life to the full.

After these two students of John the Baptist have become students of their new rabbi/teacher, Jesus, one of them, a guy named Andrew runs off to tell his brother about Him.

Andrew’s brother is a fisherman named Simon. Simon’s name means God has heard.

But until that moment those sentiments may have been nothing more than a wish in the experience of Simon. He worked hard each day under broiling suns and threatening clouds to bring back a catch, only to be taxed exorbitantly by the Romans, who enslaved his people.

At synagogue and temple, he would have found life with God, which should have given him hope and guidance, to be nothing more than demands upon his time and his life, always threatening him with God’s punishment.

Like others in his culture, he may have prayed for the coming of the Savior promised hundreds of years before. He may have even grown tired of praying for Him. Maybe he doubted that God really does hear when we call out to Him.

Andrew shows up and tells Simon, “We’ve found the Messiah,” yet another name for Jesus. Messiah means Anointed One, the long-promised Savior from heaven. The Greek version of the name is Christos, Christ. Andrew was telling Simon: “We’ve found the One for Whom we’ve been praying. God has heard us!”

Early in the animated Disney movie, Aladdin, this young street rat, is with the princess, who has escaped the palace in order to experience something of normal life. But the palace and the army, on alert to bring her back home, see her and are in hot pursuit as she runs away. Then comes a key moment. Aladdin extends his hand to the princess and asks, “Do you trust me?”

That was the question with which Simon was confronted when his little brother Andrew came with this startling news about a Savior. Would he trust that God had heard his prayers and sent a Savior?

Every day, you and I face the same question. Will we trust Jesus? Will we trust that the One Who went to the cross for us and rose again for us is the One Who can give us new life? Not our money, not achievement, not a good reputation, not the applause of friends and neighbors, not nice things. Will we trust Jesus?

Simon answered that question when he ran with Andrew to meet Jesus.

And what do you suppose happened next? Jesus changed Simon’s name. “You’re Simon, the son of John, Simon Johnson. But now, you’re going to be Cephas, Latin for Rock.” The Greek version of the name is Petros, that's Peter in English.

At that moment, Simon became Peter, the Rock. Simon Peter knew that God had heard his prayers and those of His people and that Jesus was the rock hard foundation on Whom to build our lives.

It took awhile for Peter to live up to his new name. Once, you may remember, he saw Jesus walking on the water. He asked Jesus to call out to him so that he could walk on the waves, too. Jesus told him, "Come on then." Peter climbed out of the boat and for a few steps, he did just fine and then, his faith crumbling in the face of this impossibility, he began to sink like a rock.

Then ther was that awful night when Jesus was arrested and Peter, the Rock who had stated firmly he would never abandon Jesus, denied even knowing Jesus three times.

But Jesus forgave Peter and in time, Simon Peter the Rock would, with the confidence born of personal experience, declare to all who would listen that, “Whoever calls upon the Lord will be saved!” Peter knew that God really does hear and care about us and that through a relationship with Jesus Christ, God changes our names...and our lives.

I want you to know that when you were baptized, whether as a child or an adult, the God we know through Jesus Christ, changed your name. When you first came to follow Jesus, He changed your identity. That new name and identity is: Child of God. Having that name, through the amazing charity of God offered to us from the Lamb of God, our Teacher, our Messiah Savior Jesus is the most wonderful thing in the world.

I sometimes wonder if I will ever grow into it. But I'm thankful that, in spite of my unworthiness of it, that's the name God gives me nonetheless. It's the name He gives to all with faith in Jesus Christ.

And so, today, Do you trust Jesus? That’s the question we must answer today and every day. Day-in and day-out, it's the most important question we can ever answer!

[I had decided to do this week's message on the names of Jesus and the names He gives His followers when I ran across two terrific messages that gave me added inspiration. One was by Pastor Paul Gauche (www.changingchurch.org) and the other from homileticsonline.com.]