The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1, 2026

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1, 2026

• Numbers 6:22-27
• Galatians 4:4-7
• Luke 2:15-21

Click here for an audio of the sermon

“O God, our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the World!” Amen.

The feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is one of several observances on the Church’s calendar known as “feasts of our Lord.” Others include the Presentation, the Transfiguration, the Nativity, and, the biggest one of them all, the Sunday of the Resurrection, or Easter Sunday. Like these other special days, the feast of the Holy Name helps us to meditate on and better understand a specific aspect of Jesus of Nazareth’s earthly life and teachings. Feasts of our Lord, as well as the feasts of the saints, invite us to pause and reflect on the unique role each of us plays in fulfilling God’s vision for the Church and the world. After all, Jesus’ first-century ministry was for our benefit, not his, and his special feast days help us see how we can become partners in that ministry right now in our own time and place.

But what’s really in a name? I mean, why the name ‘Jesus’ specifically? As with all names in the Bible, Jesus’ is rich in meaning and indicative of God’s particular job for him in the greater scheme of things. In Saint Luke’s Gospel, the assignment of Jesus’ name, which means “The Lord Saves” in Hebrew and Aramaic, is revealed to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel during the Annunciation. And so, right from the beginning, the naming of Mary’s child carries an important sacramental significance, and hints about what the future has in store for him.

Jesus’ name is no less meaningful today than it was back then. As probably all of us can attest, just hearing the name of Jesus is sure to evoke some kind of emotional response. Its mention can just as easily summon powerful memories based on how it’s been used with and around us (and possibly even against us) in the past. If Jesus’ name has been used rightly to teach us about love for God and neighbor, generosity of spirit, mercy, and service toward others, the memories are likely mostly positive ones. Sometimes, though, Jesus’ name is used wrongly, and then the memories around it aren’t usually so good, such as when it’s appropriated to incite fear or justify greed, domination, and violence. These are frankly blasphemous ways of using Jesus’ name, and today’s feast reminds us of our duty to restore it to its true, divinely appointed purpose of proclaiming God’s unconditional love for everyone.

In Sermon Fifteen on the Song of Songs, the twelfth-century monastic reformer, mystic, and early Cistercian, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, reflects on this transformative message of love inherent in the name of Jesus, saying:

“In some mysterious way the name of [God’s] majesty and power is transfused into that of love and mercy, an amalgam that is abundantly poured out in the person of our Savior Jesus Christ. The name ‘God’ liquefies and dissolves into the title ‘God with Us,’ that is, into ‘Emmanuel’ … Servants are called friends in this new way, and the Resurrection is proclaimed not to mere disciples but to [beloved sisters and] brothers [of Christ].”

As we can see in this quote, Saint Bernard marvels at God’s willingness – eagerness, even – to forgo majesty and power by dwelling with us humans in the person of Jesus. The utterly ineffable – and, ultimately, unnamable – Eternal God becomes true flesh and blood, fully relatable, and definitively namable. In short, the entire mystery of the Incarnation becomes accessible to us in the name of Jesus.

So, too, as we have heard and sung this morning, does the psalmist marvel at God’s desire to draw all of us into the fullness of creation, the source and summit of which is God’s own name; and, amazingly, to entrust us as stewards and heirs of the Divine Wonders, the greatest being the Divine Name itself. Truly, in spite of all our flaws, each of us by our very existence is shown to be utterly, undoubtedly, and unconditionally loved by God. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

But Jesus’ name isn’t meant simply to be a statement or even a summary of deeper truth, though it certainly is both of those. Rather, just as Jesus of Nazareth Incarnates and shows forth in his person our very God, Jesus’ name in its very self is an outpouring of his ongoing ministry among and through us. Using the example of oil, a basic and multifunctional staple of twelfth-century life, Saint Bernard goes on to expound on the efficacy of the Holy Name, saying:

“The likeness between oil and the name of [Jesus] is beyond doubt … I hold that the likeness is to be found in the threefold property of oil: it gives light, it nourishes, it anoints. It feeds the flame, it nourishes the body, it relieves pain: it is light, food, medicine. And is not this true too of [Jesus’] name? When preached it gives light, when meditated it nourishes, when invoked it relieves and soothes.”

When I stop and reflect on these words of Saint Bernard, I’m amazed at how true they really are. I can think of times when Jesus has been preached as the Way of Love, and I have seen God, those around me, and even myself in a new and gentler light; when I have managed to quiet myself in my cell or in the woods or by the river and meditated on Jesus as a devout Jewish mystic with a profoundly personal experience of God burning within him to be shared, I have indeed been renewed and nourished in my own spirit; and when I have uttered the name of Jesus the Great Physician in times of sickness, despair, brokenness, and trouble, I have never failed to feel the healing balm of Gilead at work deep within my sin-sick soul.

The name of Jesus, which is poured out by God as a source of healing, truth, and light in the world, is a reminder for each of us of our vocation to be sharers of that Good News; we are all siblings and partners of Jesus, not merely disciples and certainly not slaves, and so we are both commissioned and empowered to join in Jesus’ ministry of proclaiming the message of God’s love, and to do so boldly and joyously in the name of the one who first taught us. And, having received the Name of Jesus as our inheritance, we may, like the shepherds in Luke’s Gospel, glorify and praise God for what we have heard and seen.

But, it’s important that I add just one more thing. For as wonderful as all this may sound, we all know that sometimes it’s a lot easier said than done, especially when we’re weighed down by life, or struggling with challenging circumstances. And if that’s where any of us finds ourselves this morning (or this week, or this decade), that’s okay. When singing Glory to God in the Highest happens to feel just a bit too much, then simply doing as Mary does is enough for us, treasuring all these words as best we can and pondering them in our hearts.

As we begin the Two-Thousandth Twenty-Sixth Year of our life in Christ together, I pray that the peace and goodness of God, who indeed dwells among and within us as Emmanuel, be upon and remain with us. May each of us discover, feel, and share forth the light, nourishment, and healing beauty of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. Amen.

The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1, 2025

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero

The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1, 2025

• Numbers 6:22-27
• Galatians 4:4-7
• Luke 2:15-21

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

One of the experiences most present for me in the monastery is that of seasons and new beginnings. We are reminded of this every single day throughout the year. We live the seasons of the day- morning, afternoon, evening, night, sanctified, of course, by the Daily Office, each prayer with its own character serving as a pillar to mark each section of the day, reminding us to begin again, and to stay in the now. We live the seasons of the week. The beginning of the week, which for us is Tuesday, feels very different to the end of the week. On Tuesdays, I feel rested and energetic, and ready to face whatever may present itself. On Sundays, I’m usually tired and very much looking forward to leisure and rest. 

We live the seasons of the liturgical year- Advent, Christmastide, Epiphany followed by Ordinary time, Lent, Easter, Ascensiontide, Pentecost followed by the longer Ordinary time. We seem to experience and give meaning to the events of these liturgical seasons according to the season of the year during which they are celebrated. I’m sure, for instance, that we would be doing things in a slightly different way if we were to celebrate the Resurrection in the fall or in the dead of winter, or Christmas in the summer as people do in the southern hemisphere. 

The seasons of the year are very different from one another here in the Hudson Valley. During the spring, our grounds explode with color and beauty. The air is crisp and all the parks and mountains in the region seem to be calling us to come for a visit. Summers for me usually mean lots of gardening and looking forward to a much slower pace during the month of August when the guesthouse is closed. It’s usually very hot and humid around here making us slow down. 

The end of summer and beginning of autumn bring a burst of renewed energy to the monastery. Our guesthouse reopens for the fall. We look forward to seeing our regular guests as well as meeting the new people that will come to experience a retreat here for the first time. The end of autumn brings with it a reminder of the end of earthly life, and the remembrance of those who have gone before us with the celebrations of All Saints and All Souls.

Winters are gray and cold. There are several snowfalls during the season. At the beginning of the season, we are celebrating Christmas. I’m always quite busy doing all things music. Then, as it will happen after today, things become very quiet around here. The guesthouse will close and the community will go into deep silence during our annual eight-day retreat. After all the December celebrations, energy, and the welcoming of guests coming and going, we all very much look forward to the silence and everything stopping. It will be the occasion for spending quality time with God.

We are also aware of the seasons of monastic vocation- postulancy, novitiate, initial profession, life profession- and how these seasons intermingle with the seasons of our own life- youth, middle age, old age. We observe the flourishing of new vocations and the diminishment of older brothers day by day. 

Many new beginnings in life are accompanied by being named something new or by our taking on a new name. In marriage, for instance, people often decide to adopt their spouse’s surname, or add it to their full name. At profession a monk has the option of choosing a new name, and this action very clearly marks the beginning of something new, a new season in life. I have many former students who have come out as nonbinary or transgender and have changed their names to one better suited to their new identity and new beginning.

Names and naming are very important in the stories of Scripture. We read about God using names and name changes to establish relationship, identity, belonging and new beginnings. In the book of Genesis, God names things as God creates them, and then God names the first human: “Adam,” who is created out of adamah, the earth. After God creates and names the human, God asks Adam to name all of the animals. Later on, in that book Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah for their new covenant with God. Jacob wrestles the angel and is named Israel. In the Book of Exodus, Moses is so named because he was drawn from the water. In the New Testament, Simon becomes Peter, the Rock upon which the Church is built, and Saul becomes Paul when his life is transformed.

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Name. It is the celebration of the great mystery of that which is beyond naming taking a name for our sake. In the reading we heard from the Book of Numbers, which is one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Holy Name of God is placed on the people as a priestly blessing. “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD’S face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up the divine countenance upon you, and give you peace. So they shall put my Name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” And since, as Saint Paul says to the Galatians, we are heirs, the Holy Name of God is placed on us too, and the face of God is meant to shine upon us. Let us ponder for a moment the enormity and the beauty of that as we begin a new year! 

The word translated in the passage as “LORD” is the unspeakable Hebrew Name of God, the Tetragrammaton, or the letters (YHVH) pronounced by Christians as Yahweh, but never uttered by Jews. When the Name had to be spoken, it was replaced with “Elohim” (the strong God), or “Adonai” (the Lord) or “Hashem” (the Name). In the Bible we see it most often referred to as LORD in capitalized form. LORD, in this sense, is a way of pointing to what is beyond words and cannot be named. 

Many mystics believe that we carry the name of God on every breath. That is why it cannot be spoken, because it is the sound of breath. The spirit of God is within us and around us. Every time we take a breath during our chanting of prayers in this church we are breathing in the spirit of God and that same spirit comes out manifested in song, in beauty. So today’s feast presents one of the many paradoxes of the Christian faith- the tension between what can and cannot be named, between saying and unsaying. 

The name Jesus is a translation of the Greek Iesous, which is itself a transliteration of the Aramaic Yeshua, a shortened version of the Hebrew Yehoshua or, in English, Joshua. The most literal meaning of Yehoshua is “Yaweh is a saving-cry.” Cry in this sense means shout. In other words, the meaning of the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus the Christ is “Yahweh shouts salvation.”  Eight days ago we commemorated and celebrated the paradox of the Incarnation- the Unspeakable is spoken. Today, the Unnameable takes on a name and shouts salvation.

In first-century Aramaic there was no word for “salvation.” Salvation was understood as being made alive. It concerned the whole person. To  become whole is to be transformed from within into our true identity, our deepest freedom that only comes from God’s infinite love for us. A love that is always present, always meets us where we are, and always works with what is. We come from LOVE, and we are made to love one another as the LOVE that is beyond all that is loves us. 

So, as we begin again a new year, I invite you to return to your breath. Breathe prayerfully, in silent awe and humble gratitude because the Nameless and the Named are One within us and around us in immense love. There is a lot of darkness in this world right now, and I am convinced more and more that the higher solution, the best way to help is through the kind of prayer and meditation that takes us to the level of consciousness where all things resolve into harmony and where we can develop the will toward righteousness and goodness. The present darkness of this world will never overcome the light. Never! May we all be filled with joy and peace, yes, but also with the hope that keeps us reminded that sometimes, courage and perseverance count more. Most importantly, may our whole being be present to the LOVE that surpasses all understanding. Happy New Year! ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

The Holy Name - January 1, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky

The Holy Name, January 1, 2024

• Numbers 6:22-27
• Galatians 4:4-7
• or Philippians 2:5-11
• Luke 2:15-21
• Psalm 8

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

Let us pray.

O Lord, whose years are without end and who dwells in the light of an unending day: as we begin this year in your Name, grant us wisdom to use our time wisely, that your love may be the beginning and the ending of all our hopes, our work, our joy, and our desires. Amen.

Happy New Year!

Today's feast has had throughout the centuries many different titles, each highlighting or focusing our attention on one or another aspect surrounding the narrative of the birth of Jesus. It has simply been called the Octave Day of Christmas, reminding us that we need more than one day to take in the mystery of Christ coming among us. We need at least eight days. Some would even say: twelve. It's that big a deal.

In the Roman tradition today is called the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, drawing our gaze to that quiet but central figure who, as our Gospel today says, treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart thereby offering us a model of a true contemplative in action.

And today was for centuries titled the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ which inevitably reminds us of the Jewishness of Jesus who, like Jewish boys ever since the time of Abraham, entered into covenant of God's chosen people Israel through a ritual act marked in his flesh. There is understandably a certain hesitancy today with this title. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that small children still ask adults embarrassing questions when they hear this strange word. But to ignore it is to play, wittingly or unwittingly, into a kind of anti-Jewish rhetoric all too prevalent in our time.

Finally, we have the title we currently use in our Church, the Feast of the Holy Name with its comforting assurance that the Name of Jesus is a sign of salvation, and not just for Christians but for all people. It is a sign of hope and justice and peace.

So many titles, some many facets of a deep mystery. But let's be realistic. When was the last time anybody wished you a Happy Octave or a joyous Solemnity or a Sweet Holy Name Day or, rarest of all, a Blessed Circumcision?

No. It's Happy New Year, isn't it? And sometimes--not often, but sometimes--our popular culture is wiser than our liturgy. And I think today is one of them. So, I offer a few brief reflections on how we might begin this New Year. And I begin with a quote from Dag Hammarskjold who wrote famously in his journal Markings (1964) the following: “For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.”

The first task of the New Year is to let go of the past. Not necessarily forget it or suppress it or minimize it, but to simply acknowledge that it is indeed past, though its effects, both good and bad, may linger deeply and profoundly. We are called to learn from it if we are ever to change its course and ours. We are to become wise. And we are to learn that most difficult of spiritual practices that St. Paul counsels: to give thanks in all circumstances (I Thes. 5:18). No matter how hard, to learn again to practice gratitude, even amid pain and trial, discouragement and emptiness.

Thes second task is to consent to the future, whatever it brings. Of course we do our best, but we do so trusting that One greater than us is active, inviting our cooperation, blessing our efforts and bringing them to perfection in ways that we may never see or understand in this mortal life.

“For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.” And between the two is a period or a semicolon, a liminal pause, a resting place. Like Janus, the Roman god of two faces and for whom the month of January is named, we look both to the past and the future. We stand in the doorway, at the threshold, at the gate at once done and ready. And many of us may stand there for a very long time. There is no shame in that.

But when we find ourselves standing at the threshold, perhaps paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, the central spiritual act required of us is one of self-offering. Of availability. Of nurturing a willingness to align our dreams and desires and longings with those of the God who loves us and who dwells with us and in us. We may need to remind ourselves daily, if not more often, that our greatest freedom comes from being able to say, in one way or another: “Thy will be done.”

There are many prayers which have helped me in the lifelong and ongoing task of purifying my motives and redirecting my vision. The Lord's Prayer is certainly paramount. There was for decades the tradition in our monastic community that we brothers begin each day with the praying the Suscipe of Ignatius of Loyola, a 15th c. prayer that begins with the words: “Take and receive, Lord, my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding, my will…” It was the offering of the entire person to God, to the Higher Power, to serve God’s ends, God’s purpose, God’s dream for us and for all creation. Some of you here today in 12-Step Programs are no doubt familiar with the Third Step Prayer which voices that same intention: “God, I offer myself to Thee – To build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt…”

I treasure these prayers. But today I think particularly of one that comes to us from John Wesley, the 18th century evangelist, preacher, and founder of the Methodist movement. It is known as the Covenant Prayer.

In 1755 in London, Welsey, inspired by the German Moravians, instituted a Watchnight Service for New Year's Eve. The lengthy service included readings and testimony and confession and spontaneous prayer, and it culminated at midnight not with the dropping of a ball but with a prayer recited by everyone renewing their commitment to serve Christ and to serve others in Christ’s name and to accept freely whatever God intends and the New Year brings. It’s not unlike the renewal of the baptismal covenant that we in liturgical churches observe at Easter. The Covenant Prayer deserves sustained reflection and personal meditation. The best I can do this New Years Day is to read it to you in a contemporary language version, praying that it may guide you and me as we enter together into this Year of Grace 2024.

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you,
Praised for you or criticized for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and fully surrender all things
To your glory and service.
And now, O wonderful and holy God,
Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,
You are mine, and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it also be made in heaven.
Amen.

Happy New Year.

Feast of the Holy Name - January 1, 2021

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Randall Greve, OHC

Feast of the Holy Name  - Friday, January 1, 2021

Numbers 6:22-27

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 2:15-21

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

A few years ago I was given a gift. It was the gift of the time and resources to become better acquainted with my story, with the invitation to grow.   The beginning of the time involved writing about my family. The first question was unusual,  “What is the meaning of your name?”  My name? What does that have to do with personal healing and growth?  We are not only born into families with histories and personalities, traditions and secrets, but we are named into a community of people who begin to define us before we even know what is going on.  

Our parents, most parents, say that they want their newborn to become whoever they are, for this little baby boy or girl to grow up into their unique self, free to create a life of their own choosing.  They’re lying.  At least partially.  Parents also come pre-programmed with all kinds of fantasies and plans for us.  Unfulfilled dreams, family businesses, gender roles, to name but a few.   

“What is the meaning of your name?”  We are inheritors through the given-ness of biology (nobody asked me if I wanted to be born) a name that gives us the first understanding of an identity, a people, a place.  Our name can be a gift or a curse, or some complex mixture as we navigate the journey of knowing what this inheritance means and making our own choices on the way to becoming individuals.  We become adults with the dream of becoming whoever we want to be, and then find out we have already been socialized in ways that do not change easily, if ever.  I sketched out what little I knew about my name.  My paternal grandfather was James Richard and my father is James Richard, Jr. I am James Randall.  My grandmother suggested the change.  Did she want to forget about her husband who left her and my father?  Forget, but retain some remnant of connection to him, to a past I would never know?  The name is half old and half new, connected to the past, yet original.  Perhaps more interesting than I thought – more questions than answers. 

The naming of Jesus also contains a harmony of history and promise, ordinariness and uniqueness.  We are in the passage between Christmas Day and the Epiphany.  The Naming of Jesus bridges the seasons of incarnation and unveiling.  A baby has been born whose identity was announced and is now embraced in the acts of Mary and Joseph.  From Annunciation to New Heaven and New Earth, though he is born, grows, dies, is raised, and ascends to heaven, the name of Jesus is consistent.  In the Gospels the Lord is called Jesus almost six hundred times.  He was not an ethereal idea or morality dispenser, but a man with a name, flesh and blood, born of a woman called Mary, born within the religion of the Jewish law, under Roman occupation.  In Luke’s Gospel, the visit from Gabriel at the Annunciation is focused on communicating to Mary the identity of the child to be born.  The first thing the angel says is, “… and you will name him Jesus, (which means ‘Yahweh saves’).” The name contains the identity. Only after the name is given does Gabriel go on to say he will be a great Son, an eternal successor to King David’s throne.  So on the eighth day, today, at the appointed time for his circumcision, according to Gabriel’s instruction, the baby is named Jesus.  

In the reading from the letter to the Philippians, St. Paul also puts emphasis on the name of Jesus.  He is either quoting a hymn that may have already been circulating or crafting one of the most evocative and powerful passages in the epistles, either way the reading encompasses the whole cosmic drama, connecting Christ’s humble incarnation in Bethlehem with the end toward which that event points and promises, the regathering of all creation into union with the crucified and risen Christ for eternity.  The image of final reconciliation is bending the knee to the name – all that is contained in it - the Christ who was, and is, and is to come.  His name, the fullness of his identity and presence, is the only name worthy of the bending of every knee and the acknowledgment of every tongue. 

We again glory in the mystery that the same Jesus whose being spans across eternity becomes flesh, enters into time, in the rough, poor, oppressed, and anxious people of Jesus’ earthly life.  Perhaps some stories were whispered in Nazareth about a virgin birth and angels and dreams, but many would have regarded Jesus as one more Jewish carpenter’s son from Nazareth, just like many before and after.  Jesus, who has been given a name, comes to understand the nature of his identity.  In his ministry he is faced with the task of being faithful to his name and resisting the ways others seek to exploit and manipulate him.  In a culture where conformity, rule-keeping, and avoiding the wrath of the Romans were the difference between life and death, God incarnate is trouble, and not everyone likes where this is going.  This man, who was known in Nazareth, is different.  The offense comes early and sharply. “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” “Where did this man get all of this?”  Many apparently could not hear what he was saying because they thought they already knew who he was. 

Jesus would not be tamed, whether by his disciples, the Jewish authorities, the Romans, or even his family.  In Mark chapter three, when Jesus is teaching and is told his relatives are outside calling for him, he says, “Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!’ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”  And just like that he has upended all the familial and social norms and has revolutionized human relationship.  In his name, his identity, is our own identity as well.  The name Jesus radiates out into all the world to unveil to us that we are brothers, that family is more than flesh and blood, and that we are invited into a home that is bigger and more wonderful than we could have imagined.  The old boundaries of clan and status and race that have hidden the dark corners of bigotry and prejudice have had the name of Jesus shine into them and shown them in all their raw evil.  The naming of Jesus means new family for all. 

Yet the spiritual forces of evil that sought to label Jesus, tame and manage him, are still doing their work.  He is still used as a prop for nationalism, an advocate for materialism, a weapon to fuel religious bigotry.  “Othering” in the name of Jesus is a popular form of de-naming him.  He is no longer Jesus of Nazareth, but Jesus of my group, my agenda, my empire. Let us beware and refute the temptation to so profane the name of Jesus by labeling those whom he called brothers and sisters as ugly or dangerous or expendable.  Being prophetic need not be some grand dramatic protest or march.  It is as easy as seeing and loving a person, a unique and precious person, rather than my designation of who they are.  We claim the name of Jesus for ourselves when we renounce those forces just as he did.  By calling ourselves Christians, “little Christs”, we are carries of the name Jesus.  And that means the barriers are torn down and we wake up to being brother and sister to each other. 

In Mark chapter ten, Jesus says, “there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields – with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.”  May God give us the grace to seek and serve Christ in one another, our brothers and sisters, joined together in unity in reverence to Jesus in whose birth we are born, in whose glory we are glorified, in whose name we have a name. Amen. 

The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev. Matthew Wright
The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ - January 1, 2020

Numbers 6:22-27
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 2:15-21

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Name, which always falls on January 1st, eight days after Christmas, remembering the Jewish custom of circumcising and naming a male child on the eighth day. And so today we are celebrating the name of Jesus, but this feast also takes on a secondary meaning in light of our first reading. In the passage we heard from the Book of Numbers, we were given the priestly blessing: “The Lᴏʀᴅ bless you and keep you; the Lᴏʀᴅ’s face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lᴏʀᴅ lift up the divine countenance upon you, and give you peace. So they shall put my Name on the Israelites”—on my people. The Holy Name of God being placed on the people.

Now the word translated in this passage as “LORD” is actually the unspeakable Hebrew Name of God, the Tetragrammaton, or the letters Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh (YHVH), sometimes pronounced by Christians as Yahweh, but traditionally never uttered by Jews. And so when the Name had to be spoken, it was replaced instead with Adonai, Lord, as a way of pointing to or speaking the Unspeakable. And it’s even been said by some of the rabbis that this name of God is actually the sound of the breath, and that this is why it’s essentially unspeakable, because we are actually speaking and carrying the name of God on every breath.

And so today’s feast holds, and celebrates, this tension between naming and the Unnameable, between saying and unsaying, which is a paradox that lies at the heart of all mysticism—how do we speak of the Unspeakable?

Now the name Jesus itself is a translation of the Greek Iesous, which, of course, is not the name his parents actually gave him. Most scholars assume that name would have been the Aramaic Yeshua, a shortened form of Yehoshua or, in English, Joshua. And etymologically that name, it begins with Yah, pointing to YHVH, the Unnameable, and it ends with shua, which can be traced to the verb meaning “to rescue” or “save” or to the noun for “a saving cry” or “a salvation shout.” And so this name itself holds the tension we’re speaking of—Yah, YHVH, the Unspeakable, speaks, cries out, shouts, to save us.

And salvation in the biblical languages is connected to the word for healing or wholeness. “Your faith has saved you” can also be translated “your faith has made you whole.” And so again, Yah-shua—the Unspeakable, present in our very breath, is our wholeness. A name pointing to the Nameless. This entire Christmas season is about the unfolding of this paradox—that somehow, in Jesus, the Unspeakable is spoken, the Infinite becomes finite—and that reality continues unfolding and deepens today when the Unnameable, for our sakes, takes on a name.

This paradox between saying and unsaying, naming and unnaming, is captured beautifully in an early Christian text called The Gospel of Philip, which was probably written in the late 2nd century—too late to be given canonical status, but a window into what early contemplative Christians were contemplating. It’s not a Gospel in the traditional sense of telling the story of Jesus; instead, it’s a collection of Christian mystical teachings. And in it, we’re given these somewhat shocking words:

“The words we give to earthly realities engender illusion, they turn the heart away from the real to the Unreal. The one who hears the word God does not think of what really exists, but a concept or an image of the Real. The same for the words Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Life and Light, the Resurrection and the Church, and all the rest. By these words we are made to think not of what exists, but of what does not exist, though these things could point to what really exists.”

A powerful early Christian reminder that all our words, including God, are simply pointers. Which means that there’s always the risk that we will mistake the pointers for Reality itself, and that we’ll end up worshiping our own mental constructs rather than the living God. And so Philip here, rather mercilessly, rips all of our words away from us—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Life, Light, and Church!

But then, after his demolition project, with great tenderness, he gives them all back to us; the passage continues: “But Truth brought names into the world for our sake, and one cannot refer to Truth without names. Truth is one, but its names are many for our sake, to teach us lovingly this one thing through many things.”

Today we celebrate this great mystery that the Unnameable took a name for our sake: “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus…” Now this text always pairs in my mind with another, and since I’ve already brought in The Gospel of Philip I might as well bring in The Gospel of Thomas, which is simply an early collection of sayings of Jesus. And one of the sayings goes like this, “Jesus said, ‘A person old in age will not hesitate in asking an infant, seven days old, about the Place of Life, and will find life.’”

Here we have someone at one end of life going to someone at the other end—at the beginning—in order to discover (or remember) what life’s about. And significantly, Jesus says that this is “an infant, seven days old.” “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child…” “A person old in age will not hesitate in asking an infant, seven days old…” A child seven days old is still in the state before naming, before taking on religious identity—in that original freshness, straight from God. And so when we hold these two texts together, we see this delicate dance between naming and unnaming, the seventh day and the eighth day. On the eighth day, Jesus, for our sakes, takes on a name… and then the Named One points us back, to the one seven days old, to the Nameless. We say, and we unsay. We name and we un-name. This is the great mystical paradox.

But today we celebrate and give thanks for the naming. Today the Nameless takes a name, Jesus. And I think that this is perhaps not only for our sakes, but for the sake of the Nameless as well. There is a need, a longing, flowing in both directions. The Nameless, I believe, delights in taking on a name—in taking on all these names [gesturing to the congregation]. “So they shall put my Name on my people.” And while the Nameless delights in being named, we are invited into the delight and fullness found in returning to the Nameless, to silence, to the breath.

And the Name of Jesus holds this paradox, open wide in both directions—Yah!—the Unspeakable—shouts salvation! The Name of Jesus, paired with the breath, is of course one of the Church’s earliest prayers—what we usually call the Jesus Prayer. It’s most common form today is “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” but in its earliest forms it seems to have simply been the name itself: Yeshua, Jesus, God saves, the Unspeakable makes whole.

St. John Chrysostom wrote in the 4th century of this prayer:

“The name of the Lord Jesus Christ, descending into the depths of the heart, will subdue the serpent holding sway over the pastures of the heart, and will save our soul and bring it to life. Thus abide constantly with the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart, and the two become one.”

And the two become One. The Nameless and the Named become One. And so I invite you in the brief silence that follows this sermon, to breathe the Name of Jesus. I learned the Jesus Prayer in a very simple form from Sr. Helena Marie of the Community of the Holy Spirit—simply breathing in “Jesus” on the in-breath, and breathing out “Mercy,” on the out-breath. Breathing in the love held in that name, breathing out mercy and compassion for all creation. If this form of the prayer calls to you, or if you’re drawn to or familiar with another, take a few moments with it now, breathing in this amazing reality: that today the Unnameable takes a name for our sake, and delights in placing the Divine Name on each one of us.

Amen.

Feast of The Holy Name - January 1, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Feast of The Holy Name - Sunday  January 1,2017 

Br. Robert James Magliula

The ancient Romans had a god of doorways. Janus had two faces, one looking forward and the other looking back. He was the god of beginnings as well as endings. He was also the god of transition and change. The month, January, is named after him. So on the threshold of another year, as the vast majority of folks are waking up from last night’s party and switching on parades and football games, we gather this morning to sanctify this transition and to greet this new beginning.

The Church originally designated the observance of the first day of January as a fast day in 567 to counter pagan festivals. This day that celebrates the beginning of a new year has not always been so. Although the Gregorian calendar established January 1 as New Year’s Day as far back as 1582, in England it was not until 1752 that it replaced March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, as the beginning of the new year. January 1 eventually evolved into the feast of the Circumcision or the Holy Name, celebrating the naming of Jesus and his circumcision. In Jewish tradition the law required that boys had to be circumcised on their eighth day as a sign that they belonged to God’s people and that they shared in God’s covenant promises to Israel.

The acts of naming and being named are sacred practices in most faith traditions. Names are important to us—culturally, religiously, and individually. Names can be powerful things, and throughout Scripture God uses names to communicate divine purposes and to mark covenant blessings on those who enter into relationship with God. We’re told that God is the one who gives Jesus his name. And in giving Jesus his name, God is telling us something important about Jesus’ character and the role he will play in the story of God’s love for the world. Jesus was not simply named to establish his cultural heritage as a Palestinian Jew or to differentiate him from others. He was named Jesus to provide us with a beacon to follow and a way for us to move closer to divine goodness, grace, and mercy.

The name Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek, which is the transliteration of the Hebrew Joshua, meaning “God saves.” The name of Jesus is, as today’s collect states, “the sign of our salvation.” Given to us by God, this name is a verbal sacrament, something spoken that conveys to us the grace of God. When we use this name with faith and reverence, it is for us a prayer. Indeed, of all prayers it is the best. No other prayer is so simple. Bernard of Clairveaux wrote, “to praise the Holy Name of Jesus is to receive light, food and medicine for the soul.” Today, on this first day of the new year, we celebrate the fact that God has spoken that name to us, and not just as a word, but also as the Word made flesh. God has spoken the divine name to us as a person. We have been given the gift of a new relationship with God, a first-name relationship that is intimate and immediate.

Christians have our own mark of identity. Our equivalent of circumcision is baptism. We too are named within this formative sacrament, and we declare ourselves united with others of the Body of Christ through the vows of the Baptismal Covenant. In it Jesus connects our humanity to all that is God. It might help us remember the invisible cross on our foreheads at baptism, with a simple but powerful statement: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked and Christ’s own forever.”

The passage from Galatians highlights a change in title that drastically changes our relationship to God. We were once “slaves” but now have been “adopted” and are called God’s children and heirs. In our baptism we were claimed, adopted, forgiven, renewed, strengthened, and made members of the Body of Christ. We have been given names in baptism that identify us as participants in the story of God’s love for the world. The name of Jesus is forever sealed upon our hearts. That name of Jesus within us compels us to work for justice, peace, and love for all. And the name of Jesus gives us the will and the strength to persevere in the ministry of reconciliation.

Just as the ancient Romans felt the need for a god of beginnings, there is within our human nature a deep yearning for new beginnings, and a natural hope that this year will be better than the last. We do not know what it will contain. In this world shattered by violence, in this day plagued by divisiveness and name-calling, the name of Jesus provides an antidote to hatred, a cure for violence, and a medicine for pain. Despite any sense of powerlessness or hopelessness or cynicism we might experience, our purpose in this time of transition is to be agents of the kingdom. Our work today, as Christians and monastics, is to witness to, and to help people discover, that God can still transform.

As we look backward and forward at the same time, an old way is ending and a new one is beginning. The kingdom breaks in where and when it is least expected. It is revealed to shepherds, not to kings, to the poor, not to the rich and the mighty. The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, not in Jerusalem or the temple or a palace, but in a stable, wrapped in rags and lying in a feeding box. As we step across the threshold into a new year, perhaps our greatest hope should be that God is not finished with us, that God is still at work in our lives and in the world. The kingdom can come and it will come. Let us pray that God may fill our hearts with joy and hope, save us from our fears and doubts, and give us courage and strength to be instruments of the promised kingdom. +Amen.