Named and welcomed

Sermon for the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus (January 1, 2023).

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: The Holy Name

Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the Feast of the Holy Name (Jan 1st) is available here.

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After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Luke 2:21

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year everyone!

So today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, which is a feast dedicated to this one line of scripture only in the Gospel of Luke, which tells us that Jesus' parents, in accordance with the traditions of their community, had Jesus circumcised and named him on the eighth day of his birth. We celebrate this feast every January 1st, on the 8th day of Christmas, eight days after December 25th. But not so often does it fall on a Sunday when we're actually here together to talk about it! So it's kind of a fun and rare occurrence that we're experiencing on this New Year's Day.

Right now, we're still here with the creche, with the infant and his parents in the manger. But today we are also preparing, looking ahead to eight days from today. Sunday January 8th will be the Baptism of our Lord. We will be fast-forwarding from infant Jesus to adult Jesus; we will be seeing Jesus at his baptism. So again: Christmas, then eight days to today, The Holy Name, and then we will celebrate the baptism of Jesus on the 8th.

Today, it's interesting that we're here at the manger because the New Year itself is sometimes symbolized as an infant, as a baby. There's something about the New Year that makes us want to have a fresh start. And sometimes that can look like setting a lot of resolutions or new intentions for how we're gonna get it right in 2023. And if you're anything like me, that can become kind of a whole thing, a whole burden... but the impulse is very human, to have an opportunity to start fresh. So we're here with this new baby now looking ahead to baptism.

If you've seen someone be baptized in the church before (and you'll have an opportunity to see that next week because we have two baptisms!), you'll remember that at the beginning of the Rite of Baptism, the sponsors present the ones to be baptized, and they present them by name. The ones to be baptized are named in the same way as, on the eighth day of his life as one of us, Jesus received his name from Joseph and Mary.

If you've been a parent or you've been close to someone who's a parent, you've seen the importance of naming the new life. We name the new life when it comes into the world, and we name the new life at baptism. When we give somebody a name, we are--as Joseph and Mary were--welcoming them into our family and into our community. And naming them at baptism, we're welcoming them into the body of Christ. That naming gives them their place among us. Your own name, when it was given to you, might have given you some kind of family history. Maybe it gave you certain hopes or expectations that the ones who named you had for you. It's very likely that your own name has significance for the ones who named you because it situates you in family, in community, and then, in baptism, within the body of Christ or the body of God.

Jesus' family welcomed him with a new name. And you, too, were once named as a new life. So on this New Year's Day, I want you to go back to that moment of yourself receiving a name and to reflect on the fact that Jesus, too, was named and welcomed. And the image I will invite you to hold as we begin this new year together is to imagine Joseph and Mary holding that baby that was God, and naming him. The name they gave him was Jesus, which means "God saves. "They held and named him. And by that naming he belonged.

And I want you to imagine that for yourself, but not being held by the ones that named you. Instead, imagine yourself being held by God at the moment of your birth and at your baptism. And again, now. Imagine: you being held, you receiving newness and freshness and also belonging. You being named at your birth and at your baptism, and today: being named beloved child of God.

As you begin this new year, know that you are held in the arms of God, and that you are named beloved of God, and member of the body of Christ. Let that be the place that you come from as this new year begins. Amen.