SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah writes, Is it too little for you to weary men that you weary my God also?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: What's in a name?
SPEAKER_00: For us today, most think nothing about names beyond naming our children or our pets.
SPEAKER_00: Our names are simply what we're calling.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us here have at least two names, our first and our last name.
SPEAKER_00: Our last names are our family names.
SPEAKER_00: At best, we have pride in our lineage.
SPEAKER_00: But most don't even know or care about whether or what either of their names mean.
SPEAKER_00: I had an interesting conversation with my children once.
SPEAKER_00: They expressed to me that they wanted to know what their names meant.
SPEAKER_00: So I told them the meaning of their names, that this is what they're called.
SPEAKER_00: There is God is my strength, and God is my oath.
SPEAKER_00: I have a father's joy, and God is my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And my last but not least, she's called pure and bright.
SPEAKER_00: But they now have an identity that they weren't aware of previously.
SPEAKER_00: Something that speaks to them about who they are and what they're called.
SPEAKER_00: But for most of us, at the end of the day, we hardly believe that the names, that our names, actually tell us who we are.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in today's day and age, we treat names as quaint and trite, but nothing of real substance or value.
SPEAKER_00: The reason for this, it's sin, actually.
SPEAKER_00: How many people do you know named Michael who are not very godlike?
SPEAKER_00: Michael, after all, means one like God.
SPEAKER_00: Or how many women do you know called Megan, but don't really believe God is my shield?
SPEAKER_00: But our point of view doesn't negate the truth about God.
SPEAKER_00: Our sinfulness doesn't dictate or change the truth conveyed through God's spoken word.
SPEAKER_00: Not living up to our names only demonstrates the depth of our sin and the fact that we really need a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: In this morning's gospel, it's Matthew who interprets the Old Testament prophet Isaiah for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's Saint Matthew who's able to see Jesus in the Old Testament and then explain it to us.
SPEAKER_00: But this shouldn't be too difficult for us either, as believers, as those who have been baptized into Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We should be able to see Christ throughout the Old Testament as well.
SPEAKER_00: After all, Jesus does tell us it's all about him.
SPEAKER_00: Even his name is there, as long as we know what we're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: But to shorten the distance for you, to close the gap, let me explain it to you this way.
SPEAKER_00: When Joseph decided to divorce Mary quietly because he was a just man, an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream and told him to take her to be his wife anyway, because what she had conceived was from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He told Joseph, She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew does the legwork for the prophet Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah doesn't give us the explanation for the name because there is no need.
SPEAKER_00: Any Hebrew who would have read it or heard it, like it's written, his name is God with us.
SPEAKER_00: But Matthew, being such a nice guy and writing to Greek speakers and eventually to us English speakers, decides it's important to translate the name for us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_00: This is why his name is above every name.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, who is the Christ, is God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: But then there's also the conversation between Joseph and the angel.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph doesn't get to pick the name like every other Jewish father would.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he's told to give the boy the name Jesus, which means he saves.
SPEAKER_00: But even this is not a new name, folks.
SPEAKER_00: This name is also found in the Old Testament as well, in the writings of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: For the name Jesus that we use is translated from the Latin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus in Latin is a translation of the Greek Yesu.
SPEAKER_00: And the Greek is a translation of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which you know as Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: So Joshua means the same thing as Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they are not two different names, but the same name.
SPEAKER_00: And in this too, you will see the handiwork of God prophesying about the one who is to come.
SPEAKER_00: For just as Joshua would be the one to lead God's people, after Moses, from the wilderness into the promised land, also the God man, who is Jesus the Christ, is the one who will lead God's people from this broken upside-down wilderness of this world into the eternal promised land in his kingdom which has no end.
SPEAKER_00: There are no coincidences in Scripture, friends.
SPEAKER_00: There is no name given that's trivial, just like there's no word in Scripture that's inconsequential.
SPEAKER_00: So let's realize what this means for us.
SPEAKER_00: You two were named.
SPEAKER_00: But not with just any name.
SPEAKER_00: You too were named with the name of God in your baptism.
SPEAKER_00: And that means something.
SPEAKER_00: Names are important to God.
SPEAKER_00: They are important in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: What you are called by means something before God as well.
SPEAKER_00: But when God puts his own name on you, he is making you holy unto himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is not much different than when the Lord established the Levitical priesthood back in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them clear instructions on how that they might be able to approach him and come into his divine presence in the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: Washing first, being covered with the appropriate vestments according to God's command, and the high priest must have the name of the Lord on his forehead in order for him to enter the Holy of Holies before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, without the name of Yahweh on his forehead, everything he brought before the Lord would not have been considered holy.
SPEAKER_00: For the rest of the Israelites, this is much the same.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Numbers records that God instructed the priest Aaron and his sons to give the Aaronic benediction, which you know as the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear it, only the blessings seem to stand out to us.
SPEAKER_00: But if we were to read Numbers chapter 6, where God gives this task to Aaron to do, we find that this is how Aaron is instructed to put God's name on his people.
SPEAKER_00: God tells Moses, So shall they put my name on my people, and I will bless them.
SPEAKER_00: We lose the emphasis in the first part of the blessing because we can't see it in English.
SPEAKER_00: It actually reads, Yahweh, the tetragrammatan, or the name of God in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: So then we finally understand that they are blessed because God has placed his name on them.
SPEAKER_00: The blessings follow his name.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord is not the one, I'm sorry, but the Lord is the one that still does this.
SPEAKER_00: It's his word that's spoken through the mouth of the priest.
SPEAKER_00: He puts his name on his people, making them a holy nation unto himself.
SPEAKER_00: In this way, they know he is their God, and they are his people.
SPEAKER_00: There's no mistake.
SPEAKER_00: And so then the Lord would dwell in their midst.
SPEAKER_00: He renamed them.
SPEAKER_00: He called them by his name.
SPEAKER_00: He became to them a father and they his children.
SPEAKER_00: And it mattered to them.
SPEAKER_00: And it matters to you.
SPEAKER_00: You two are called by his name.
SPEAKER_00: You were renamed in your baptism.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of you.
SPEAKER_00: You were renamed as you are baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, the same name, right?
SPEAKER_00: Hear it again in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There is no greater name in heaven or on earth.
SPEAKER_00: This is the name by which you must be called and clothed with to enter into God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: You must be washed.
SPEAKER_00: You must be vested in the robes He gives you to wear in order that you may enter the wedding feast in His kingdom, which has no end.
SPEAKER_00: You must be clothed with Christ in your baptism, so that the old man in you would be crucified with Christ and the new man rise again daily.
SPEAKER_00: It's not trivial because God's name is never trivial.
SPEAKER_00: You are now covered in the one who saves.
SPEAKER_00: Baptism was not some mere outward act telling the world how you now follow Jesus, but it is the moment that the one called He Saves saves you.
SPEAKER_00: Because right there in your baptism, you were washed clean and covered with Christ, because there in your baptism you were cleansed of all your sins and made God's child, because there in your baptism you were gifted with the Holy Spirit, just like St.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, and in doing so, he now forever points you to the bearer of the name that is above all names, Jesus Christ, who is your Lord, who lives and reigns forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Dear Saints, remember your baptism.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that Jesus is God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has come in flesh appearing.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to you now in humble means.
SPEAKER_00: He will come again in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: You stand as a witness to that testimony before the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: You bear his name forever.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the name by which you are called.
SPEAKER_00: For you are his beloved, bloodbought, baptized children who have been forgiven of all their sins.
SPEAKER_00: It means something.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: In the main, in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.