Holy Name of Jesus/Second Sunday after Epiphany
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, as well as commemorating the Second Sunday after Epiphany. This feast is of medieval origin. Devotion to the holy Name of Jesus was especially popular in medieval England. The date was fixed on the Second Sunday after Epiphany in the eighteenth century.
However, though the origin of this devotion is medieval, the roots of the feast are biblical. In the Old Testament the name of someone tells something about their identity. When they are called by God they are sometimes given a new name. Thus, Abram becomes Abraham. When Moses encounters God at the burning bush God reveals himself by revealing the divine name, “I am who I am”. Indeed, so sacred was the divine name that later Jews would not utter it. The Angel of God’s presence who went before the Israelites in the wilderness bore the divine name for “my name is in him” (Exodus 23:21).
In the New Testament the Saviour was given the name Jesus because he would save his people from their sins. After his death and resurrection the early Church gathered in his name. It was in his name that the apostles worked miracles such as the healing of the lame man in today’s epistle. When the apostles were charged by the Jewish authorities not to teach in his name they replied that salvation could be found in no other name, because “there is no other name given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The Old Testament prophets had looked forward to a coming age when all who called upon the name of the Lord would be saved. In Jesus this promise had now been fulfilled. His coming was the coming of God into the world. As St. Paul put it to the Philippians God had highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).
When the Old Testament was translated into Greek in the Septuagint Kyrios (the Lord) was the word used for God. When the early Christians said that Jesus Christ is Lord they used the same Greek word Kyrios that the Septuagint used for God. In other words he was given the divine name, meaning that he shared in the divine identity. He could therefore be worshipped and not simply venerated. Thus, long before the later language of the Nicene Creed of being of one substance with the Father, Jesus Christ was worshipped as God because he bore the divine name and thus shared in the divine identity. As St. Athanasius later put it, though the language of being of one substance with the Father was not in the Scriptures, it conveyed the true sense of the Scriptures. Thus, from the earliest days of the Church baptism was in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
People today often take offence at the exclusive claims of Christianity that salvation is only by Christ, and this is not a new reaction. The ancient pagan world reacted in a similar way, for they believed that there were many gods and many lords. The Jews were regarded with suspicion because they worshipped only one God, but at least they were following their own ancestral customs. By contrast, the early Church insisted that only one God should be worshipped and he had revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, in whom alone salvation could be found. The pagan world should therefore renounce their idols and worship him.
It scandalised then and it scandalises now. The early Church confronted a world in which the cult of the Emperor was the fastest growing religion. The claim that Jesus Christ is Lord posed a direct challenge to the cult of the Emperor and the worship of the civil power. St. Paul troubled the authorities in Thessalonica because he gave allegiance to another king, one called Jesus. That is why so many of the early Christians became martyrs, because they refused to accept the cult of the Emperor and were therefore deemed guilty of treason against the State. In effect the Church presented an alternative society to that of the Empire.
Eventually the Empire succumbed and accepted Christianity. The Church no longer trained its members for Christian dying, but for Christian living. Though in the West the Empire fell to the barbarian incursions they were converted to Christianity and Christendom was the result. Subsequently, Western societies succumbed to the Enlightenment and were secularised (the situation we find ourselves in today). In the East the Roman Empire continued as Byzantium for another thousand years before it too fell to the Islamic Ottoman Empire. The ideal of a Christian civilisation passed to Russia, before that itself fell to the militant atheism of the Soviet Union in the twentieth century (returning to a situation like that of the age of the martyrs).
The purpose of the European Enlightenment was to effect a separation between Church and State and so create a civilised but non religious humanity. In effect, western societies repudiated Christian dogma, but still sought to live by a secularised version of Christian ethics. However, it now seems that our society is reverting to open paganism. Instead of being seen as a necessary evil to keep the peace in a fallen world, the increasing power of the State is now presented as the solution to every problem. It is the modern day equivalent of the pagan cult of the Emperor, for it involves the worship of the civil power.
Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, the truth of the Gospel is unchanging. The message that it is Jesus and not Caesar who is Lord is still the same today. This is especially important at the present time when governments all over the world are trying to use the present crisis as a way to increase their power and control over people. But we know that the powers that be in this world are not our ultimate authority. If Jesus Christ is Lord then the Chinese Government is not, Vladimir Putin is not, the President of the European Commission is not, Donald Trump is not, Keir Starmer is not. All these people and other similar ruthless seekers after power and success in this world may seem all powerful and may be very effectively manipulating the present crisis as a way of amassing more power for themselves and their governments, but they are not (whatever delusions of grandeur they may have about themselves) the ultimate authority.
God in Christ has triumphed by the Cross over the principalities and powers, the dark forces of rebellion against God that seem to rule this world. We now live in the time between his victory over the forces of evil by the cross and the final victory when God will be all in all.
For, as St. Paul put it to the Philippians, our true commonwealth is in heaven, from where we await the final coming of Christ to transform our mortal bodies into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.
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