{"id":1970,"date":"2026-01-05T13:29:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1970"},"modified":"2026-01-05T13:31:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:31:40","slug":"whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/05\/whats-in-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s In a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor \u00a92025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fourth Sunday in Advent\/A \u2022 December 21, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Isaiah 7:1-10 \u2022 Romans 1:1-7 \u2022 Matthew 1:18-25<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s in a name? That which we call a rose \/ By any other name would smell as sweet; \/ So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call\u2019d, \/ Retain that dear perfection which he owes \/ Without that title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juliet has a problem: she\u2019s fallen in love, deep, hopeless, the way adolescent girls do, with a boy who\u2019s from a family her family hates. She famously points out that it\u2019s his name that\u2019s the problem, not he himself. So, just like a favorite football player, traded to a new team, putting on a New Jersey, she suggests he simply get rid of the name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Names are the first things we get, and they often reveal something about who we are. Romeo\u2019s last name is Montague, and he\u2019s the enemy of the Capulets, Juliet is a Capulet, and the families are enemies. Names often carry meaning, honoring someone like a grandparent or a friend. I was named after my dad\u2019s best friend when I was born. He played trumpet in the University of Michigan band. Later, they had a disagreement, so I haven\u2019t seen the man I\u2019m named after since I was about six. Some names show affection or are private. Jacquelyn is from Texas, and when we became a couple, she brought that southern spirit home. She calls me \u201cPreacher man,\u201d and no one else is allowed to use that name, and no one does. It\u2019s her private name. All three of today\u2019s scripture readings encourage us to name our savior. They challenge us with different names and invite us to experience him in various ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand the section from Isaiah, we need a bit of background. King Ahaz\u2019s Judah is caught between Egypt to the south and Assyria to the east. Some local kings have allied with the Egyptians and want Ahaz to join them, so the kings of Damascus and Samaria are at war with him, fighting around Jerusalem. He\u2019s unsure of what to do, and when he turns to the prophet Isaiah, he\u2019s told to rely on God. Isaiah invites him to ask for a sign from God, but Ahaz refuses. So, Isaiah tells him what sign will be given: a child who will be named Immanuel. \u2018Immanuel\u2019 means God with us; it comes from the Hebrew word for God\u2014El\u2014and the Hebrew for \u2018with us\u2019. Isaiah is teaching Ahaz this fundamental fact: God\u2019s permanent presence. He wants him to make a difficult choice: to rely on God when Ahaz only sees the armies of his opponents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t it interesting how we all approach tough decisions? What\u2019s the first thing we do? Do we crunch the numbers, jot down the pros and cons, or maybe just rely on a well-worn saying or some online advice? What if we really considered God\u2019s presence in that moment? What if we turned to God in prayer, asking for less of a direct answer and more of God\u2019s hope? What if we called God Immanuel? How would that shift our perspective? How would it transform our church?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to go to a gathering of clergy every April and I had a lot of friends who were older ministers. One year, a discussion leader asked us to talk about what we actually did during the week. For me then, it was mostly researching the scripture, preparing a sermon, so I said that; most of the people in the group said the same. One of us, a man I had come to respect a great deal, said, \u201cEvery morning I go in the office, look at the calls, say hi to my secretary and then I take the church directory in the sanctuary and I sit and pray for each person in the church.\u201d I was stunned. I certainly prayed for people but usually just the ones who were in the hospital or sick or had asked for prayer. I\u2019d like to say I went home and started doing this and I did for a couple of days but then things got in the way and it slipped away. Years later when I faced a difficult conflict at the beginning of COVID, though, I was so frustrated that I began to do it again. It didn\u2019t solve the conflict but it did quiet me so I stopped being angry. I began to be less angry and more able to be a real pastor. I regularly do that now: I pray for each of you, I pray for our church. I see it as my most important job. I wonder: what if every day, every one of us simply asked God to help us be a more faithful, vibrant, loving church?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m eager to move on to Matthew and his account of the advent. He begins with a genealogy that traces 14 generations from Abraham to Joseph. He wants us to understand that this birth is a part of God\u2019s enduring relationship with these people. Some of the names are truly remarkable. Rahab, for instance, was a prostitute who aided the Jews in capturing Jericho; Bathsheba famously had an affair with King David. Ruth, on the other hand, isn\u2019t a Jew; she\u2019s from Moab, which means she comes from a completely different family. Finally, we arrive at Joseph, who is distantly related to King David and, therefore, to God\u2019s promise to David that his line would always be with him. This story is all about Joseph; if you\u2019re interested in Mary, come back on Christmas Eve, when we\u2019ll read Luke\u2019s story, which is all about Mary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph and Mary are engaged, which is a much more serious commitment than our engagement today. It\u2019s been publicly recognized, and there might even be a contract. Now, Joseph has discovered that Mary is pregnant and immediately assumes she\u2019s been unfaithful. He\u2019s a good person who follows the Torah, and the Torah in Deuteronomy suggests that he should end the marriage. He knows this will be incredibly difficult for her, and he truly cares about her, so he does what we would do: he takes his time, considers the situation, and comes up with a plan to get out of the marriage without hurting Mary too much. \u201cJoseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly.\u201d [Matt 1:20] But then, an angel appears to him in a dream. The angel begins like all angels do, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid,\u201d but then says something that doesn\u2019t quite make sense: \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to take Mary as your wife; she\u2019s going to have a child, and you\u2019re going to name the child Jesus.\u201d Well, the angel doesn\u2019t actually say \u2018Jesus\u2019; he says \u2018Yeshua,\u2019 which is Hebrew for Joshua. Later, it gets translated into Greek, which doesn\u2019t have that \u2018sh\u2019 sound, so it becomes Jesus. It\u2019s a name that means, \u201cGod saves.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, that\u2019s what he does. Now, there\u2019s the tricky part of Mary being a virgin\u2014or not. Early on, Christians linked the Isaiah passage we read with this one. In Greek and later Latin, a Hebrew word meaning \u2018young woman\u2019 was translated as \u2018virgin\u2019 because it wasn\u2019t really about the body but more about young women in general. The church really took hold of this. Today, it\u2019s a big deal for some, but a stumbling block for others. If it helps you, that\u2019s great; if it doesn\u2019t, that\u2019s okay too. It\u2019s important to remember that we focus on the biological details here in a way that no one in Jesus\u2019 time would have. They had lots of stories about virgin births. Some people even believed that Emperor Augustus was born of a virgin, and there are other similar stories. It\u2019s a way of saying that in this person, God has come to humanity in a special way. And the reason for this coming, this advent, is specific: salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does salvation mean? For some, it\u2019s about an emotional experience; for others, it\u2019s a quiet, internal feeling. Generally, it means understanding that God isn\u2019t just everywhere, but with you, personally present. When we feel God present, we often feel a sense of our own inadequacy, our own sinfulness. I know this feeling; I stand here and talk about loving my neighbor, but when that neighbor is driving poorly near me, I can get pretty angry. Still, I know God is with me, present, sometimes disappointed, always forgiving and inviting me to grow up a little, act on what I believe. Calling the baby Jesus is a marker: God is not just present in history, but right here, in this person, and as that person grows up, God is providing a class in how to live a Godly life, even when that life ends in a cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings us to Paul and his letter to the Romans. Unlike many of Paul\u2019s letters, this time he was writing to a church he hadn\u2019t gathered, to people he didn\u2019t know. The section we read comes from the beginning of the letter. He\u2019s introducing himself, and he does it by calling up names. \u201cPaul, a slave or servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle.\u201d There\u2019s a lot to unpack in this simple sentence. First, he\u2019s added another name to Jesus: Christ. Christ is the Greek word that translates \u201cMessiah.\u201d Messiah means \u201cthe anointed one\u201d or \u201cthe chosen one,\u201d chosen by God. The job of the Messiah is to redeem God\u2019s children. Now, we already know Matthew has given us a long list of the family of God\u2019s children; Paul is going to explain to the Romans and to us that we also are part of that family, adopted into it. And in that family, there are no distinctions. We\u2019re all invited equally, invited by God, made into one family by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He names himself an apostle, someone who has seen the Risen Lord, and then he says that he is a servant or a slave of Jesus Christ. He\u2019s giving us a rule about how we stand in relationship to Jesus: not as equals but as servants and members of the kingdom he preaches. He\u2019s going on and talk about what it means to live as part of that kingdom but right here, right from the beginning, he\u2019s inviting us in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s really what all these names are: doorways into the meaning of Christ for us. So today\u2019s scriptures give us three names, three doorways, into the meaning of Christ for us. We started with Immanuel, God present with us. We went on to Jesus, God saves. Now we are given a new name: Christ, the anointed one, the chosen one of God. You probably have different names too: husband or wife, son or daughter, dad or parent or mom. If you work, you have a title at work. And you have your own private sense of self. What name does God call you? What name will you call God?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The names of Christ: Emmanuel, Jesus, Christ are doorways into his meaning for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,109,3,2,32],"tags":[132,410,98,411],"class_list":["post-1970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-matthew","category-sermon","category-worship","category-year-c","tag-advent","tag-emmanuel","tag-hope","tag-salvation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1973,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions\/1973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}