William Shakespeare once asked, “What’s in a name?” The Bard mused “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. As a Capulet Juliet did not want to attach any meaning to a name because her lover Romeo was a Montague and all who carried that name were to be her sworn enemies. In the well-known balcony scene Juliet laments her lover’s name and cries out, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
I don’t know if it is because of the influence of the Bard but today we don’t pay much attention to the meaning of a name. We tend to pick names for our children based on how the name sounds or who the name reminds us of. I know a few of you picked names for your children because of the meaning behind the name, but I suspect most of us were assigned a name with little to no thought as to the meaning of that name. So, I thought it might be fun to share the meanings behind some of your names. Let’s start with the name Kurt. We have a couple of Kurts in our congregation. The name Kurt means Courteous. Thinking about the Kurts in our congregation I would say they are appropriately named. Now let’s look at the name of a lady like Donna. The name Donna means lady or more fully “lady of the home”. The name Donna is the feminine version of the title Don (as in Don Corleone – the godfather himself). Maybe Donna is secretly the head of an Italian crime family here in Johns Creek, GA. I don’t know why the meaning of this next name made me giggle so much but the meaning of the name Dennis is “follower of Dionysus”. For those of you who aren’t complete nerds, Dionysus is the Greco-Roman god of wine. Knowing that a guy who spent much of his career as a bottler of brown beverages was named after the god of booze makes me giggle and it makes me want to spend more time hanging out with Dennis. I had fun looking up the meanings behind your names. Ask me latter and I might tell you whose name means “stinking hair”, whose name means “covered in gold”, and whose name means “exhausted”. Now, I know I am in no position to judge. My name means “mountain of oppression”. My family no doubt occasionally feels I am appropriately named, but I am going to choose to believe that my mom, like many of your moms, wasn’t thinking about the meaning behind my name when she gave it to me.
These days we don’t pay much attention to the meaning of names, but there was a time when the meaning behind a name was the reason a child was given that particular name. For example, the name Isaac means laughter. Abraham named his son Isaac because Sarah laughed when the angel told her she was going to have a baby. The name Esau means red hair and the name Jacob means heel grabber. Isaac named his twin boys Esau and Jacob because one was born covered in red hair and the other was born holding onto his brother’s foot. Pharoah’s daughter found a baby floating in the Nile River. She named the baby Moses because the name Moses sounds like the Hebrew word for “draw out”. In bible times people were very intentional about the names they gave their children.
I imagine Joseph was conflicted about the name his future in-laws had given his fiancé, Mary. You see the name Mary has two drastically different meanings. One meaning of the name Mary is “beloved”. That is who Joseph thought she was. Luke tells us, “18… Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph” which means Joseph was pledged to love Mary. As was the custom of his time, Joseph would have demonstrated that love to Mary by preparing a house for her to live in and raise their family in. Often took months for a future husband to prepare the house for his future wife. So, when Marry told Joseph that she was going to visit her cousin Elizabeth, Joseph wouldn’t have thought anything of it. In a way her visit was a blessing for Joseph. He had so much to do before the two of them could live together as man and wife and with Mary gone, he could focus all his attention on the task at hand. While Mary visited Elizabeth, Joseph was hard at work making sure that he was prepared to take care of and provide for his beloved.
When Mary left to visit Elizabeth Joseph thought Mary was his beloved, but when she returned, he wondered if the alternate meaning for the name Mary might be a more accurate description of who she really was. The alternate meaning of the name Mary is “rebellion”. When Mary returned from Elizabeth’s house, Luke tells us, “18… she was found to be with child”. Joseph knew he wasn’t the father; I mean he hadn’t even seen her for months. They hadn’t been in the same town together let alone the same room. No doubt Mary tried to explain to Joseph what had happened to her; no doubt she tried to convince him that she was still his beloved. But how was Joseph supposed to believe her? True, there had been miraculous births before where the womb of an elderly wife that was thought to be barren was able to give birth to a child, but this was different. Nothing like what Mary was suggesting had ever happened before. Virgins don’t get pregnant! She must have thought he was a fool. Though it broke his heart, Joseph concluded that Mary his beloved was really Mary the rebellious.
Have you ever been where Joseph was? Have you ever been the victim of another person’s rebellion? Ever received a gut punch like this? Ever had your entire world turned upside down where everything you counted on trusted in and thought to be true was suddenly a big stinking pile of pain? Have you ever been where Joseph was? Maybe you are there now. I have been there, and I know how tempted you are to respond to the rebellion of others with resentment, revenge, and rage. I know what it is like to feel the pain of rebellion and if you have ever been where Joseph was you do too.
If you have ever been where Joseph was then you know how incredible it is that he reacts the way he does to Mary’s supposed rebellion. Luke tells us “19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” The penalty for what Joseph assumed Mary had done was clear. In Leviticus 20:10 Moses wrote, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” Joseph did not want Mary dead, but he also did not want anything to do with her and so he decided to divorce her. Though he assumed her rebellious, there was part of him that must have still thought of her as his beloved.
On the night Mary returned from Elizabeth’s house, I am sure sleep did not come easily to Joseph, but eventually exhaustion must have overtaken him. As he slept, Luke tells us, “20 an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” The angel addressed Joseph as “son of David” so that he might be reminded of the words of the prophet Samuel who told David “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”[1] The angel spoke to Joseph about conception so that he might recall the words of the prophet Isaiah who foretold “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.”[2] The angel spoke to Joseph of a “son” perhaps hoping that the mention of a male offspring would remind him of the male offspring of Eve who would “crush your [the serpent’s] head”[3]. Finally, the angel instructed Joseph to name the child “Jesus”. 2,000 years ago, many children would have been given the names Jesus. Variations of the name Jesus were as common then as the name John is now. The name Jesus means “Jehovah saves”. People named their sons Jesus because they longed for salvation from their enemies, salvation from their afflictions, salvation from their sorrows. But the angel made it very clear to Joseph that he was to name Mary’s child Jesus “because he will save his people from their sins.”. This coming Friday when we gather to celebrate Christmas, we will talk in much greater detail about how the child named Jesus was going to save His people from their sins, but today I want to focus on the impact the herald angel’s message had on Joseph.
The next morning when he awoke, I imagine there were two thoughts racing through Joseph’s mind. The first no doubt was that he owed Mary his beloved a big apology. We have spent a good amount of time imagining what this was like for Joseph but having your fiancé accuse you of adultery and abandoning you and your unborn child couldn’t have been a picnic for poor Mary either. Someday maybe we will explore that in greater detail. But for now, let’s just imagine the sort of groveling Joseph had to do after the angel confirmed Mary’s story. Luke tells us, “24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.” I hope Mary wasn’t too hard on poor Joseph. I hope she didn’t bring this up every time they had a disagreement over who was going to do the dishes.
On a very human level Joseph’s mind must have raced with the ramifications of the angel’s message. Joseph had been chosen to raise Mary’s child, he had been tasked with the responsibility of providing for and protecting the Son of God. But it is the spiritual level that commands our attention. The second thought that must have raced through Joseph’s mind was the greatness of the Lord’s capacity to forgive. As Joseph thought about the pain, he felt over Mary’s supposed rebellion, it would have been natural for him to think about his actual rebellion; his sin that had caused the Lord even greater pain. As Joseph thought about his decision to divorce Mary for her supposed rebellion, it would have been natural for him to realize the Lord had even greater reason to divorce Joseph because of his actual rebellion. Having himself recently felt the pain of a supposed rebellion, Joseph must have marveled at the Lord’s capacity to forgive his actual rebellion. When Joseph woke up the next morning, I suspect it was not lost on him that Mary would give birth to Jesus that “rebellion” would give birth to “Jehovah saves”.
The next time you experience the kind of gut punch that Joseph experienced, the next time you find yourself standing before a pile of pain because of someone else’s rebellion, I want you to think of the pain your sinful rebellion causes your God. I want you to think about how often and in how many ways He has demonstrated His love for you and how often and in how many ways you have punched Him in the gut. I want you to consider how deserving you are of divorce. Then I want you to think about the child named Jesus. I want you to think about “Jehovah Saves”. I want you to think about the Lord’s capacity to forgive you. It is not going to make the pile of pain go away but focusing on the Lord’s capacity to forgive your rebellion will make it easier for you to forgive others when they rebel against you.
What’s in a name? for people like you and me, honestly not much. Our Kurts would be just as courteous if they were named Jim. Donna would still be a lady if she were named June. Dennis would still have a successful career in bottling if he were named Jack. We may not pay much attention to the meanings behind our names, but there is one name that means a great deal to a rebellious people like us. Today we marvel at the Lord’s capacity to forgive as we hear the herald angel say to Joseph, “21… You are to give Him the name Jesus…”. Amen
[1] 2 Samuel 7:16
[2] Isaiah 7:14
[3] Genesis 3:15