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| Greek letters iota, eta, sigma form a classic abbreviation for Jesus' name |
I remember when I was a kid seeing graffiti some “Jesus Freak” had scrawled on a wall near my school:
Jesus Saves.
Beneath this pronouncement some other clever wag had written:
S & H Green Stamps.[i]
January 1st, New Year’s Day, isn’t just a day off to watch parades and football or recover from the effects of excessive merrymaking the night before. The Church celebrates this day as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. It commemorates the eighth day after Jesus was born, the day his parents would’ve observed Jewish tradition and had him circumcised—marking his flesh to proclaim him a child of Abraham and heir to God’s promise. This granted him identity.
This is similar to the Christian tradition of giving a child a name at baptism. This also explains the seven day gap between the time the church celebrates Jesus’ birth and when the “Year of Our Lord” begins. If you consider the high infant mortality rate in the ancient world, you’d want to wait a week to make sure your little one was strong enough to survive before introducing him or her to the community. I guess it wasn’t enough just to be born. Back then things didn’t get started until your kid was officially received.
On this eighth day, Jesus becomes a member of the family of Abraham, and gets named according to the instruction Joseph received from the angel in Matthew 1:21. “Jesus” is our English version of “Yehoshua,” a Hebrew name which we sometimes translate as “Joshua.” It’s a contraction of the phrase “Yahweh is Salvation” or “Yahweh Saves.”
As we kick off this New Year, it might not be a bad idea to meditate just a bit on what that phrase means. I mean, what does “Jesus saves” mean for you? You personally. Ever think about it?
I was thinking I'd give a short excursus on how Christian theologians have historically understood our doctrine of salvation, but when I started to write it, I realized I was actually boring myself. No telling how dry and dull you might've found it. So, instead, I’m just going to ask if Jesus saves, what exactly is he saving us from?
You see, I worry at times that we as the American church are getting just a little too complacent with our salvation doctrine. I’d bet if you asked the average pew-sitter what “Jesus saves” means he or she would tell you that it means Jesus died on the cross, made blood atonement for my sins, and as long as I confess this I’m set free from fretting about any torment in the afterlife. I have my fire insurance.
Okay. That sounds like the right doctrine to me. But somehow it no longer sounds like enough. If we really embrace this wild preacher from the ancient world, we’ll see a guy who heals people because they need healing. He feeds people who need feeding. He includes people who need to be included. He shakes up people who need to be shaken up. He confronts a system which needs to be confronted and he gives his life doing it. If Jesus saves us from anything, he saves us from complacency.
We should ask ourselves at times if our churches were founded as places of healing, helping, and advocating or merely as cultural clubs. Is the church a gathering place for the already “saved” or a mission for the needy? Do we go to church because it’s the “right thing to do” or because the words of the gospel excite and inspire us to reach out to others?
If the words and actions of Jesus catch fire in our imaginations, we might also say that Jesus has saved us from despair. You don’t start out to save or rescue anyone or anything if you don’t first believe they can be saved. Jesus died, but he also rose. He taught us that on the other side of disaster is a new beginning.
Perhaps the problem with the contemporary church is its mono-dimensional view of the word “salvation.” Maybe we can take some inspirations from those shepherds who made haste to see the baby in the manger. I think they might’ve missed God’s point just a bit, probably believing that this little tyke was meant to save their country from foreign occupation. Still, you’ve got to hand it to them. They went away glorifying and praising God. Even though it would be years before this child could do anything, they knew what he’d do would be spectacular. Even as an infant, he saved them from feeling hopeless.
We have a pretty good guess about what we’ve been saved from, but do we know what we are saved for?
[i] It is a sad
commentary on the state of American Lutheranism and its ability to reach a
contemporary audience that everyone to whom I shall preach this sermon is
probably old enough to get this joke! If you’re not, just google it.
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