What's in a Name? - Matthew 1:18-25

Introduction

A lot of thought goes into naming a child, doesn’t it? People begin thinking of what they’d like to name their children while they’re still children. Probably, I could interview all of the little girls and teenage girls in our whole church, and they already have some idea of what they’d like to name the baby they hope to have some day. And, funny enough, many of you guys have thought about it too, even though you’d never be caught dead admitting it. It’s a major responsibility, isn’t it? You’re literally helping to forge a person’s identity and determining who they will be known as for the rest of time.

What’s interesting to me is that this responsibility dates back all the way to the Garden of Eden. What’s the first job that man has? It’s naming all of the creatures of the earth that God brings before them. And, the significance of that is that God is allowing man to have authority and dominion over all of the creatures, which reflects God’s image in us. So, in naming someone or something, we are, in a significant way, reflecting the very image of God. He is creative, and we are creative in his image.

God’s Word

Throughout the Bible, names play a very important role. Names in Hebrew culture very often were given like a job description so that a person could know who they were to be and what role they were to play. In fact, what you find is that very often when there is a person who God is going to use to advance his promise forward, He takes the responsibility upon himself to do the naming. That is, God chooses to work through a particular person in a particular way, and He very often marks that person by giving him a name that identifies him as having a particular duty within God’s plan. You can think of God instructing Sarah to name her son Isaac. Isaac means “one who laughs” because Sarah laughed she was told that she would bear a child in her old age, and God would prove her unbelief more laughable than that. So, in the Bible, names are significant, and the children of promise who are named explicitly by God himself are of the utmost significance to God’s plan to rescue from the curse of sin and death.

And, this is what comes to the forefront in Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story. It’s the names that Jesus is given, and it’s these names that are intended to foreshadow for us Jesus’ identity as the child of promise and his job description in coming. There are two primary names given for the Son of David in Matthew one, Jesus and Immanuel, and I want to look at each one so that we can see What’s in a Name: (headline) and why that matters to us.

“Jesus” has come to accomplish God’s “mission.”

Why “Jesus”?

1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

I love Matthew’s account of the Christmas story because it’s written from a man’s perspective. You’ll notice that Matthew’s account in much shorter than Luke’s, and it’s the difference in Matthew being written from Joseph’s perspective and Luke being written from Mary’s. Megan can remember every detail of when our children took their first step and how old they were when they used a sentence for the first time or the number of ear infections each child had. For me, I’m like, “Yea, I love em!” Whenever I take them to the doctor and he starts asking questions (like the year of their birth), I’m a deer in the headlights. And, you get a little of that from the gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth. So, Joseph is struggling with some big questions when his fiance turns up pregnant, and he’s planning to divorce her (betrothal essentially meant that they were legally married though not yet ceremonially). And, an angel appears to him in a dream to let him know that everything is going to be okay and that he should carry on with the wedding. Then, in verse 21, the angel gives Joseph a very specific instruction. Joseph is not going to take upon himself the typical role of a father to name his firstborn son. God has a specific name for this child of promise — “Jesus”. And, the account closes in verse 25 by explaining that Joseph was obedient to the command and named the boy Jesus.

So, why Jesus? Why out of all of the names God could have chosen to did He choose to name his Son Jesus? Have you ever thought about that? In fact, in Hebrew, Jesus is actually the Greek equivalent of Joshua. This was a very common name among Jews in the first century, and it would have triggered thoughts of two prominent Joshuas from the OT scriptures. Understanding these Joshuas can help us begin to hone in on exactly who Jesus was to be and what He was to do. The first Joshua was Moses’ successor and the great military leader found in the book that bears his name. Do you remember what he accomplished? God used Joshua to bring Israel out of wandering in the wilderness and into the enjoyment of the Promised Land. He saved them from pointless wandering and allowed them to experience the fullness of what God has promised. The other prominent Joshua in the OT is found in Ezra. Israel is returning home to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon, and when they arrive they find that the temple is in ruins. And, the high priest is a man named Joshua, and he is tasked for reestablishing the temple so that the Jews could worship God once again. So, these are the thoughts that would’ve crossed their minds when they heard Jesus’ name, and these are the thoughts the help us to understand Jesus’ mission.

“for he will save his people from their sins.” “Joshua” means literally “YHWH saves.” It gets to the very heart of Jesus’ mission. Jesus has come so that, like Joshua, his people can stop wondering aimlessly through the wilderness. Jesus has come so that his people can enjoy the Promised Land of God. Jesus has come to save them from their slavery and oppression. Why don’t are they being oppressed? Why are they occupied by Rome? Why are they living in the wilderness? It’s because of their sin. And, Jesus has come, like the high priest Joshua, so that his people can enter through him as the new temple into the true, unhindered worship of God. He’s come so that their access to God and his promises and grace can be unobstructed. So, the explanation of the name that the angel gives to Joseph makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? And, why can they not enter into the holy of holies? Why can they not have unhindered access to God already? Why do they have to go through a priest and a sacrifice? It’s because of their sin. Fixing this, overcoming this is Jesus’ mission. It’s exactly as the angel has said, Jesus has come to “save his people from their sins”.

A Controversial and Wonderful Mission

As Matthew’s gospel will unfold, this mission was misunderstood and controversial in Jesus’ day. It would lead to his rejection by most, and the crowd will scoff at him with these very same words in Matthew 27 as Jesus hangs on the cross, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” And, this is controversial today, too. Jesus’ very name, the essence of his very mission is to come and save sinners who cannot self-rescue. That is, Jesus’ very name implies that you are a sinner and that you need saving. And, if you’re unwilling to embrace that reality then the very gospel of Jesus will be foreign to you. It is increasingly true that I find people unwilling to acknowledge that they are in need of saving. They find this to be an offensive and oppressive message. But, that’s because that’s only the first half. This is not a message about oppression; it’s a message about freedom. But, you cannot enjoy the freedom that your Savior offers until you realize the slavery that you have to that wilderness your wondering in because of your own sin. In fact, John says that If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8) That is, there’s nothing more dangerous than believing you’re in the Promised Land when you’re really wondering in the wilderness. There’s nothing more dangerous than believing you’re right with God when you’re really far from God. There’s nothing more dangerous than being “deceived”. And, it’s a deception that we’re tempted by because we want to believe that we’re pretty good folks. We want to believe that we’re really okay.

But, that’s not all that John says. In the very next verse, he says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You see, two things are wonderfully true about the mission of Jesus and are implied by his very name. Two things are in his job description and flow out of his very identity. The first is that we don’t have to fix our problem. We’re being drowned by the rapids and the turbulence caused by sin, and trying to swim out of it on our own just exhausts us to no good effect. Thankfully, ‘YHWH saves, and Jesus has come!! You see, the name Jesus is a fulfillment of Psalm 130:7-8. Look at what it says, “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” Most literally translated, it says “He HIMSELF will redeem Israel.” You don’t have to self-rescue because God is coming out to you. Don’t hope in yourself! Hope in the LORD! God himself has come to redeem you. God himself has come to put you on dry ground. You see the good news? You can’t understand and love and adore Jesus for who He is and what He does until you understand and appreciate who you are and what you’ve done. But, once you do, you’re able to realize that Jesus didn’t come primarily to establish a moral code or to give you more to do or to tell you to try harder; Jesus himself came to rescue you and deliver you so that you could live in the enjoyment of God.

The second implication derived from Jesus’ name is the “who”. And, who will experience this rescue? Who will know Jesus’ love in this redeeming way? Who will be rescued from being swept away with the current of this earth? Is it everyone? No, it’s emphatically not. The angel clarifies this from the beginning, “for he will save HIS PEOPLE from their sins.” Who are his people? Is it just Israel? That’s the question Matthew’s Jewish readers are supposed to ask and then discover as they read the book, but let me go ahead and tell you Matthew’s conclusion: I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:11-12) Who are his people? Anyone from anywhere with any background who will trust not in their ability to follow the rules or the ability to succeed at life or the ability to be tougher than everyone else but who will instead come to Jesus by faith. Embedded within Jesus’ very name is his willingness to open up God’s floodgates of promises to any sinner who will come to him for rescue!

God is Bringing us Home

God has come to us in order to complete his own mission through Jesus. God has come through this greater Joshua so that we can stop wondering in the wilderness and start enjoying the Promised Land. That is, God has come to bring us home.

Illustration: (Show Pic of Ross Edgley) In 2018, Ross Edgley endeavored to complete the longest open-water sea swim by swimming the more than 1700 miles around Great Brittain. It would take him 157 days to do, and his feet would never rest upon dry ground. The swim took a tremendous toll on his body. The arches in his feet fell down from lack of walking. The constant wearing of a wetsuit covered his body in soars. He was stung in the face by a jelly fish and his face became badly swollen. The constant exposure to salt water caused parts of his tongue to fall off. After almost five months at sea, Edgley made it to the home stretch in the freezing temperatures of November. The end is in sight, and he has virtually nothing left to give. But, when he made the turn toward the shore unsure of how he would find the energy to finish, he realized the more than 300 people had come out to swim the final stretch with him, and he explains that he was carried home by their energy, not his own. You see, that’s the picture of Jesus’ mission. He himself has come to us to take us home to the Promised Land. He’s come to us to rescue us from our own exhaustion and from our own swim and from our own drowning that we might finish by his energy. Won’t you let him?

“Immanuel” has come to keep God’s “promise.”

1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

God’s Promised Presence

There’s bit of discrepancy over who is assigning the second name that we see — Immanuel. It could be that the Angel is still talking, or it could be that Matthew is interjecting his commentary on the situation by doing what Matthew often does — looking back into the prophets to see how Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. But, either way, Jesus is assigned the name of Immanuel from Isaiah 7. A child was promised in Isaiah 7 that would be born of a virgin and that child would be known as Immanuel, which means quite literally “God is with us.” In fact, this is the very same child who will be the shoot from the stump of Jesse (Son of David) through whom the whole world would be made so radically new that the wolf and and the lamb with live together, and the child will play by the pit viper’s den and not be bitten. This is the child through whom God’s people will enjoy his promises to their fullest extent, and what’s the sign that you will have that He’s come? He will be born to a virgin. That’s how you will know that God has come to live with his people in the way long promised.

God had promised from the beginning that his people would have a relationship with him that no other people had with their god. He wouldn’t be out there somewhere. He wouldn’t be impersonal. He wouldn’t be uncaring. He would be right there in the middle of his people. His promise was his presence. In Genesis 26:3 he promised Isaac: “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.” He repeated this promise to Isaac’s son, Jacob: Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.” Even when Israel was enslaved by Pharaoh in Egypt, He made his presence known. As He was calling Moses to set them free, God assured Moses by repeating this promise: He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” And, that brings us back to Joshua. Do you remember what God famously said to Joshua on the edge of the Promised Land and faltering beneath the weight of the responsibility? Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” So, you see, the promise of God has always been the presence of God, and the presence of God has always meant the peace and security of his people.

Humiliation and Vulnerability Weaponized

And, that’s where this gets really good! Israel new this promise in part, but they didn’t know it in full. God had promised them his presence, but He’d also assured them that He’d withdraw his blessing if they rebelled against him. You see, there is an inherent risk, if I can say it that way, for God to allow his presence to dwell particularly in the camp of sinners. And, it can be summed up with two words: humiliation and vulnerability. Of course, I don’t use either of those words in their ultimate sense as no sinner or nation of sinners or church of sinners can lead to the undoing of God. But, what I mean is that God’s chief end is his own glory and the fame of his own name, and by associating with sinners He makes his name vulnerable to being humiliated before the nations. So, God’s presence would bless his people, but then it would withdraw as Israel would bring shame to his name. This cycle is stuck on repeat. Enter Jesus. What two words can we use to characterize the mission of Jesus? Humiliation and vulnerability. And, the point that I want to make is that the significance of Jesus being “Immanuel, God with us” is that God came to live with his people as Jesus in order to ultimately overcome our humiliation and vulnerability through his own humiliation and vulnerability. That is, Jesus was grant us the full security of his promise to enjoy his presence always by destroying humiliation and vulnerability THROUGH humiliation and vulnerability. And, you can see this in his parents.

Joseph’s humiliation

Mary’s vulnerability

Christ’s victory