New Year - Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord Jesus Christ - 1st January 2025
What’s in a name? We sometimes say that to imply that what we call someone or something doesn’t matter, they are still the same. That is true, and yet names are important, they bring us into relationship with one another and names shape the relationship. When we meet someone it’s the first thing we want to know and remembering someone’s name – something I wish I did better – is a great gift to them, a way of saying ‘you matter to me’.
Today we come to the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord Jesus Christ, eight days after the celebration of his birth. This new-born child is marked as a child of the covenant and given his name. In Jewish tradition a child, especially the first-born male, would be given a name from within the family such as that of the father. But for both John the Baptist and Jesus their names were given by God. They were called out for a special relationship with God that went beyond their belonging in their birth family. As St Luke tells us [Lk 2: 21]:
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
It was a common enough name meaning ‘God saves’ but in the case of Jesus, whom we have come to know as God incarnate, that name was lived out to the full in his life, death and resurrection. God came to us in a way never known before, opening up the path for all of us to know God in a new way.
Over Christmas we have heard from the letter to the Hebrews how God spoke in the past through the prophets, throughout the long journey of God with his people. Their relationship grew and changed and brought humanity to a point where God could finally speak to us in his son. And perhaps God had to change too, if we dare say that? In the Old Testament God was usually encountered as a fearsome presence – when he appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai wreathed in fire and cloud anyone else who dared to approach would be killed. Moses himself was only allowed to see God’s back. We hear of God ‘breaking out’ on various occasions, for example when Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark on its journey to the city of David. He was struck down dead [2 Sam 6]. After that David was reluctant to bring the Ark any further towards his city and I don’t blame him. I’m left with a strange feeling that perhaps God was struggling to find a way to be in relationship with humanity without blowing them up? The power and glory of God was too great for us to bear in our frail human bodies and both God and humanity had to change for there to be a closer relationship.
Gradually different images started to emerge, as when Elijah encountered God in a sound of sheer silence very different from the explosive presence on Sinai. Later still the prophets began to use images of intimacy, of marriage and of a time when God would be present in peoples’ hearts.
Bit by bit the way was prepared for Mary’s ‘yes’ to God, allowing him to become incarnate in her womb. God laid aside his power and glory and in humility was born as a helpless baby. He could be touched and handled without breaking out and destroying anyone who came near. God was no longer remote but intimate and close. With the circumcision of Jesus the ‘I AM’ who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was named as a human person. When someone tells us their name they invite us in to relationship with them and in this naming of Jesus we are invited in to a personal relationship with God.
As you know there is a whole strand in Christian spirituality of veneration of the name ‘Jesus’. I have come to realise that there is indeed power in this name, it resonates in us, bringing us into relationship with God the Father through our unity with Jesus Christ in our hearts. We sing ‘Deep in silence the eternal begotten is sealed’1 but that silence is broken as God speaks the word ‘Jesus’, a baby held in Mary’s lap. To hear that word we need to enter in to the deep silence within which God dwells and encounter the presence that is Christ in us, the Christ who upholds all things, through whom all things were made yet intimately present in our hearts.
I hope that in our shared life of prayer this mysterious presence may grow within us and amongst us throughout this coming year.
“You are THE PLACE where God speaks”
Card designed and printed at Malling Abbey
Mother Anne - 1st January 2025
1The Malling Abbey Christmas antiphon for Our Lady.