There is already a Christ and Calendar post for the feast of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus. You can read that here. This post is a sermon reflecting on the name of Jesus which I gave at a carol service a few weeks ago. Every blessing to you and your loved ones in the year of our Lord 2026!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

We are probably all familiar with these words spoken in Act II, Scene II of Romeo and Juliet as Juliet realises that her beloved Romeo bears the surname of her family’s hated rivals, the Montagues. Names don’t matter, Juliet is saying. You can switch them around and the things stay just the same. It reflects a distinctively modern, Western approach to names. We generally treat names as a convenient sound you can use to refer to someone. Perhaps at most, they might remind you of a loved one. I’m named after my Mum’s favourite Uncle. As it happens, the name Edward means ‘wealthy guardian’. But nobody on learning my name would assume that told you anything about my qualifications, either as a banker or a bodyguard.

Names play a very different role in the ancient world and indeed in many non-Western cultures today. People in Jesus’ day were often named after their ancestors or other relatives, but there was much more to it than that. A name summed up hopes and dreams for the future. The meaning of your name pointed to the kind of person the community hoped you would grow up to be. If you were named after an ancestor, it would call to mind their heroic deeds and the desire that you might show similar character in your generation.

In the passages of Scripture we’ve heard this afternoon, the child of Bethlehem has been given many titles. He is the Son of David, he is Christ, the Lord, the one born King of the Jews, a ruler and a shepherd to God’s people, the light of the World, the Word become flesh. But it’s in Matthew’s Gospel, in the revelation of Jesus birth to Joseph, that we learn the significance of Jesus’ name. “You are to give him the name Jesus,” Joseph is told “because he will save his people from their sins.”

The name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name we know as Joshua. In Hebrew it means ‘the Lord saves’. Which is why the Angel tells us that it points to Jesus’ mission to save his people from their sins. And while other children’s names are given as a way of pointing to hopes and wishes for the future – ones which may or may not come true – the name of Jesus is revealed by God. It is no mere wish or hope; it is a prophecy and a promise.

Jesus’ name is a prophecy worth meditating on. The child born to the Virgin Mary would go on to do many things in his life – more than all the books in the world could record. He could have been named for his miraculous powers or his stunning wisdom. His name could have told us he was a teacher to learn from or a king to bow down to. It could foreshadow his passion for justice or the global reach of his influence. And none of those names would have contained a word of a lie. Scripture is full of titles for Jesus that pick up on every aspect of his work.

But the heart of it all, the thing that everything else flows from and comes back to is this: Jesus was born to be a saviour. Everything he is and everything he does, from the instant that his first cells were knitted together in Mary’s womb, was dedicated to the salvation of his people. Whether he is teaching, or working miracles, or praying, or ruling, judging, or dying and rising again, he is always saving, saving his people from their sins.

The Queen put this beautifully in her Christmas message way back in 2011, do you remember it? “Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general (important though they are) – but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Jesus’ name is a prophecy to meditate upon, but it’s also a promise to receive. Jesus’ birth is something that requires a response from us. He is a teacher and we should listen to him, our king and we should bow before him, God incarnate and we should worship him. But before all those things he is a Saviour, and we should hope in him. There are many things we should do for Jesus; but his very name testifies that above and beyond that, he has come to do something for us. He has come to save us from our sins.

It’s not fashionable to talk about sin and even when we do, it’s often nothing more than an over-indulgent slice of Christmas cake that we have in mind. But sin, all the ways we fail to live up to God’s commandments that we love him and love our neighbour, truly is what we need rescuing from. Sin is what ruins our lives and the lives of those around us. Sins, be they greed, or jealousy, or hatred or a thirst for revenge, or simply the desire for power, lie at the heart of the conflicts and crises that wrack our world. And sin is what alienates us from God, from his light and love, even from life itself and exposes us to judgement and death.

Jesus came to save us from sin. To redeem us from the guilt of it, so that God can forgive us and welcome us as his children. To free us from the power of it, so that the failures and habits of the past can, bit by bit, be replaced by new ways of truth and love. To cleanse us from the presence of it, when in time he will perfect the work he has done in us and banish all sin forever. To rescue us from the effects of it, by bringing us even life from the dead. As the Sussex carol says; When sin departs before his face, then life and health comes in its place.

This Christmas, amidst all the familiar readings and carols, the rush of preparations, the clamour of our children and grandchildren, take time to meditate on the prophecy of the name of Jesus and, as a sinner, joyfully receive the promise it contains.

What’s in a name? In this case life and love, freedom, renewal, hope, cleansing, forgiveness, and welcome into the loving arms of a Father in heaven. In a word, salvation is in this name. And so I wish you a very merry Christmas, in Jesus’ name.