Be Christ Jesus, share the same mind and heart, because you share the same name.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Name of Jesus
Texts: Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2:15-21

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

My parents disagreed about whom I was named for.

One said it was for the husband of Mary. The other – and I never remember which said which – said I was named for the son of Jacob. I wasn’t happy with the ambiguity.

But as an adult I realized I was deeply drawn to a third Joseph, the man from Arimathea, who takes the body of Jesus and, with the help of Nicodemus, buries Christ in his own tomb. So awhile ago I decided Joseph of Arimathea was the saint whose name I carried.

Names matter. Maybe you carry the name of your parent or grandparent. Maybe your parent gave you a biblical name, or a famous one. Maybe you even identify with that person for whom you are named. But they do matter.

Today we celebrate an important day for Jesus.

On the eighth day of his life he was circumcised, according to the law. On this day he joined the covenant of Israel, was bound in his own blood to the covenant promise God made with the chosen people. This is very like our baptism, where we are joined in water and the Spirit to the covenant promise of God in Christ.

And it was also the day he got his name. Jesus, in Greek. Yeshua in Aramaic. He was named after the successor to Moses, Joshua. “I-Am-Who-I-Am saves” is what the name means. A powerful name for the One who is God-with-us, the One who actually will bring about the healing and salvation of all things.

But lots of little boys got that name. It was and is a pretty popular biblical name. For this little baby, the name was important, but it was only a sign of something greater. And that something is the most important thing.

That’s Paul’s point to the Philippians.

He says that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. It’s why many here bow their heads every time the name of Jesus is spoken in liturgy.

But it’s not Paul’s main point. The name Jesus carries – “I-Am-Who-I-Am saves” – is a sign pointing to who Jesus actually is, what Jesus will actually do, that Jesus is God-with-us, the salvation of the Triune God in this world.

It’s not the name itself that matters. It’s how Jesus lives into this name.

And today Paul invites you to live into the name Jesus.

To become part of God’s saving. “Let the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul says. Become like Jesus, the eternal Son of God, one of the Three in the Trinity, who let go of it all to become human among us, to lead us back into the arms of God, into the dance of the Trinity, into the love that holds the universe together.

Have the same mind as that, Paul says, the same mind as Christ. The same heart as Christ. The same self-giving love as Christ. The same life as Christ. That’s Paul’s invitation on this day.

To take the path this child walked, a path that was signaled by this name.

Be who you are named after. That’s the call.

It’s why I chose Joseph of Arimathea. What drew me to him was that he was a person of privilege, wealthy by the world’s standards, who kept his faith private, to himself. But he learned he needed to become open in his life about his faith. So he risked exposure and ostracism from his peers to openly declare his allegiance to this Jesus of Nazareth, and offered his own place of burial for him.

I need to be challenged to risk my privilege and what I have to step out publicly and be the love of God in the world. And so Joseph points me to Paul, who says, “have the same mind and heart as Christ.”

Bowing your head when the name of Jesus is spoken is a holy and good devotion.

But living your life as Christ is far more what Paul hopes you’ll take from his words.

In the end, the reason the angels told Mary and Joseph to name him Yeshua, “I-Am-Who-I-Am saves,” is because this child was God and would save all things.

But that’s why you bear the name of Christ Jesus, too. Because through you, and me, and all who bear this name, this heart and life of the Triune God, God will bring healing and life to all things. It’s what you were named to be.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

The Light has come and has shown you God’s heart: that you share that heart and bear the Light into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nativity of Our Lord
Text: John 1:1-14, add 18

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness can’t understand it, John says.

But can you? Do you?

God’s Light, through whom all things came into being, entered our world as a human, but the world did not know him, John says. The Light came to his own people, whom he made, and they did not accept him.

Do you?

We have a problem with our vision and understanding, John says, when it comes to God. Everything we are and have is of God’s Light, made and graced by the Triune God.

But we struggle to see. To understand. To know. We want God’s light to shine on the shadows of evil in this world, to restore the creation, to bring all into the light of God’s loving embrace. We want what John today says about the Light of the World, about Christ.

But can you see it? Do you understand it?

The problem might be that we don’t appear to hope for the answer God is bringing.

When you imagine God solving the problem of world hunger, what do you imagine? A miraculous intervention changing all the deserts into fertile land? A power move overturning corrupt governments that deprive their people of needed resources?

When you imagine God stopping evil in this world, what do you imagine? God intervening with power in every terrorist act? God destroying those who live their lives to harm others? God going into Gaza or the Ukraine and taking away all the weapons and bombs?

That’s what we really want to see. But it’s not the way God works. And if you are devastated by the carnage and destruction that is happening in this world, know that God is even more. But God still is going to bring healing and wholeness another way.

This Child who is born shows you and the world the heart of God.

This Light of the World, this Word-made-flesh, John says, gives us inside knowledge of God’s true heart for the world. “No one has ever seen God,” John says. “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made God known.”

Because of Jesus the world no longer needs to speculate as to the nature of God, the heart of God. We never have to look at a natural disaster again and wonder, “was God angry with those people?” We never have to face a tragedy of evil and ask if it was punishment from God. We never can claim violence and killing as the way of God. Because now we’ve seen God’s heart in the face of Christ Jesus. The heart of the Triune God is and always will be love.

But God’s answer for the pain of this world is and always will be love, too. It’s the only way to stop the evil and insanity.

This is the only true light that can end the darkness.

Coming in person revealed God’s heart as love, and, because the shadows of evil rose up against Christ Jesus, hanging him on a cross, this in-person love also showed the power of God in losing, the strength of God in self-giving. Rather than fight the shadows of this world by destruction and force, the Triune God entered the shadows to transform them from within.

God said, “I’ll open myself up to evil and it will do all it can to me, and light will still win.” When God doesn’t fight evil but stands in its way on our behalf, stands even in our way as we make evil, God brings a light that darkness cannot understand or overcome.

But the plan was never meant to stop with Jesus.

From the beginning of creation God’s plan has always been to care for the world through the children of God. So, to those who see this Light of the World, who trust in Christ, John says, God gives power to become children of God themselves.

God’s solution to everything that ails this planet, everything we wish God would fix, everything wicked and ruined and oppressive, all comes down to this. God will bring healing through you, through me, through all God’s children, across this globe.

We are children of God; so we, like Jesus, bear God’s heart in the world. We, like Jesus, become people who are always love, all the time. We, like Jesus, become people who stand as light in darkness not with power but with a willingness to lose, like God.

Even divine power able to create universes couldn’t fix God’s greatest pain about this world: the hearts of God’s children were cold and selfish, the root of all that is wrong in this world.

Change the hearts and you’ve got something, God thought. You’ve got changed people. And then a changed world, because these people are going to go out there and make a new creation with God’s Spirit giving them grace to do it.

In the coming of this Child, now you can see the truth clearly, and trust it.

Jesus, the Light of the World, the Word made flesh, has made God’s heart known to you. Now you, a child of God yourself, get to reveal that same heart, that same love, to the world, and see God’s healing begin.

And God’s light will shine in you. And no shadows, no darkness, will be able to stop it.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen