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What's in a Name?  

4/30/2002

 
Shakespeare said through the mouth of Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Nevertheless, names are important to us. Expectant parents pour over books of names in search of just the right one for the soon to arrive child. Maybe you’ve looked up your own name in these books to see what it means (by the way, David means “Beloved”).

People sometimes change their names, e.g. when they get married or divorced. Willis Knight, who is presently imprisoned for murder, recently applied to change his name to Rasool Kadhafi, to reflect his conversion to Islam. Of course, it’s also a way to disassociate himself from his criminal past. There have been several criminals of late who wanted to change their names. There is even a new state law which requires that victims be notified when inmates seek a name change.

Changes of name are not uncommon in the Bible either. Jacob (“Trickster”) becomes Israel (“He who strives with God”). Saul, the persecutor of Christians, becomes known as Paul, the Christian missionary.

Jesus renames Simon, Peter (which means “rock”), because “on this rock I will build my church.” He obviously saw something in Peter which no one else (including Peter) had seen up until that point.

Jesus promises in Revelation, “To everyone who conquers...I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

Jesus holds out to all of us the promise of a new name. For no matter how “good” our name is, all our names have been somewhat sullied by our pasts. Jesus offers us a new name, a new beginning, a name which calls forth the yet unrealized potential within us. What new name has Jesus picked out for you, by which and to which he is calling you?

©2002 C. David Hess

Easter Earthquake  

4/4/2002

 
During my sermon this past Sunday, I focused on the earthquake which Matthew says occurred on Easter morning. As long as my sermons are, it might be hard for anyone to imagine that I actually leave things out that I don’t have time to include, but I do. For example, some points left over from last Sunday are:

Matthew’s inclusion of the earthquake in his account of Easter emphasizes that the resurrection was not just an internal event experienced by the disciples. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University, in dialogue with Marcus Borg of the skeptical Jesus Seminar, says,
Marcus thinks the disciples had an experience. They said, “Wasn’t it great being with Jesus before they killed him? You remember those great stories he told? The lectures, er, sermons? Just thinking about it makes him seem almost still here. Yep, he is still here. Let’s all close our eyes and believe real hard that he’s still here. Okay?”
The resurrection was not just a psychological event. The earth shook!

It is important to note too that God’s coming into the world and into our lives is always an earth-shaking, life-shaking event. William Willimon raises the intriguing possibility that the angel who met the women at the empty tomb was the same angel who awakened Joseph one night and gave him the message that his fiancée was pregnant. (Willimon remarks, “Talk about an earthquake!”) The point is that when God comes into the world or into a life, things cannot remain the same.

Lastly, earthquakes reveal that which cannot be shaken. Our lives can be shaken by accident, by the gyrations of the stock market, or by a word from our doctor or employer. We sometimes wonder if there is any solid ground upon which we can stand. The Easter earthquake reveals the frailty of this world and its powers. It also reveals the “Solid Rock” upon which we may build our lives.

©2002 C. David Hess

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