
Listen carefully: you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. —Luke 1:31
She will give birth to a Son, and you shall name Him Jesus (The Lord is salvation), for He will save His people from their sins. —Matthew 1:21
Before our first child was born, I spent many hours poring through baby name books, three or four books with thousands of names each. I was looking for the perfect name. My husband and I used to travel to Houston two to three times per month, so he was trapped in the car while I hashed and rehashed “our” favorite names. After months of study and review, we finally landed on the perfect names – one for a boy and one for a girl. A friend told me a few years later that the first year or two of his life, I never called our first born by the name that had been so laboriously selected. I called him “Babe” or “Baby.” I still do.
Mary did not spend hours choosing a name for her first born. The angels sent by God told her and Joseph that their son’s name would be Jesus, meaning deliverer or savior. It was a name that fit His purpose on Earth, to be the salvation for all believers, none of whom can consistently live the holy life demanded by God. We have our moments where we eagerly share the Fruits of the Spirit and follow the Greatest Commandment but then we stray off the path, sometimes in a series of one small steps and sometimes in one big leap. Because of our shortcomings, the Son of God took human form so that He could be the salvation of all people, our salvation. The birth of Jesus in the Christmas story leads us to the Easter story where His sacrifice for us fulfills the promise foretold by His name. With the fulfillment of that promise comes another promise. If we believe in Jesus and strive to live by the Word, we can get a new name: Child of God. As one of God’s Children, we can be assured that God loves us as a parent loves a child, guiding our path but understanding that there are times we wander. God is always there to welcome us back and help us get back on track.
With the birth of two more children, the baby name search was reinvigorated two more times. I frequently use nicknames for those two also – “K” and “To.” (I can imagine that in the quiet moments, Mary had a pet name for Jesus, maybe “Baby” or “Little One” or “J.”) The name we are given is important, but so is the name “Child of God” that is given to us as a believer.
Dear God, thank you for the salvation that You sent to us through Your son Jesus. Remind us even when we stray from our path that we are a Child of God. Amen
Susan Lambert