THE NAME OF JESUS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He was conceived.

Luke 2:21

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The baby conceived by the Holy Spirit had grown and grown inside Mary’s womb throughout her pregnancy until that Bethlehem night when he emerged into the world, God’s only Son who was fully God and fully man. Laid to rest in a feeding trough within a lowly stable alive amongst the animals, the baby began its journey to its destiny to save all mankind, a journey that would only last 33 years before it would end. There was only one thing missing at the onset of the newborn’s life.

A name.

You see, things were quite a bit different in New Testament times than they are today when it came to naming a baby, particularly a boy. They didn’t have sonograms back in the days of Joseph and Mary where they could possibly get to see the gender of their child and then immediately tell everyone what the baby’s name would be before it was even born. Rather, Joseph and Mary had an angel, certainly not the norm for most couples, who came and delivered the following guidance to both of them from God before Mary would be impregnated and carry His Son:

“Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call Him Jesus.” Luke 1:30-31

“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:20-21

The angel Gabriel made sure both Mary and Joseph knew the gender of the baby that would be born unto them (a male) and the name the child was to be given (Jesus). Of importance to remember is that Jesus was the name God gave His Son. No one else provided it and so it came to be just the way God wanted it to.

So what does the name of Jesus mean anyways?

The translation is very interesting…Yahweh saves…with Yahweh the title given to the God of the Hebrews combined with the fact that God had sent His Son to save His people from their sins as Gabriel proclaimed in his declaration to Joseph.

There is no disputing that Jesus was the name to be given to God’s Son and that He made sure the name was known to Joseph and Mary before their divine baby was supernaturally conceived.

So why didn’t we see the name of Jesus used by Joseph and Mary for their baby before Jesus was born or after His delivery?

Because there were some specific rules within the Jewish culture that needed to be followed before the newborn boy could be named. We see those rules reflected in just a single verse from Luke’s first chapter, a verse that brings us to a place in time eight days after Joseph and Mary’s baby came into the world:

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He was conceived. Luke 2:21

We had a preliminary look at this custom when we looked at the birth of John who would grow up to proclaim Jesus’ coming. You’ll recall that the eighth day after Elizabeth gave birth to her child, the boy was circumcised and at that time he was given the name John. In other words, the baby naming didn’t happen until the rite of circumcision had been performed, a fulfillment of God’s command in support of the covenant He had made with Abraham (Genesis 17).

And so it would be that on the eighth day of life of Joseph and Mary’s baby boy, then had Him circumcised and it was at that point that they gave Him the name of Jesus, the name provided them by Gabriel from God.

It would go down in history as the greatest name, the name above all names because it was the name of the Savior of the world, God’s one and only Son, and the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. And one day, all the world as we know it will receive and respond to the name of Jesus, a truth validated by the final words of this devotion drawn from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi:

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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