The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



The Holy Name of Jesus, January 1, 2012, Church of St. Joseph of Arimathea Hendersonville

“And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:7-8).

New Year’s Day hasn’t always been on January 1st. Up until the 18th century New Year’s Day was on March 25th in England and her colonies: the first of four days in the year on which rents were due and accounts were settled, people were hired and people were paid. March 25th came to prominence first as the Feast of the Annunciation, the day when the angel appeared to Mary and announced that she was to be the mother of the Savior. January 1st had been the beginning of the new year in Roman times, and so it became New Year’s Day when Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1751. But of course January 1st was also a feast day, the 8th day of Christmas, the day on which the infant Christ was circumcised according to the Jewish Law, the Law of Moses. And so in this roundabout way we come to our own celebration today, a celebration of the Holy Name of Jesus, the name bestowed at his circumcision, “the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Lk. 2:21), as it says in our Gospel today.

In short, no matter when we begin the new year we begin it with a festival, a religious feast, with the very Name of Jesus. It’s fitting enough. The human instinct at the beginning of a new year is to hit the re-set button, to erase the old mistakes and to begin again. It’s a time in other words for “new year’s resolutions.” It’s a helpful instinct. Some of the most sensible advice I was ever given in dealing with the highly technical problems that arise with computer software was to simply turn the computer off, to hit the metaphorical “re-set” button and to start anew. That’s the instinct of the “new year’s resolution”: the instinct to turn off the blasted machine that’s all fouled up with error messages, frozen solid with faulty sub-routines and data loops and what not, and to start all over again. Who doesn’t want to do that, to have the chance to switch the old life off and to begin a new life? We can do better, be better in fact, if we only have the chance.

The Feast of the Holy Name says something important to us about this human instinct to begin again. “Jesus” means something like “YHWH saves,” “God saves,” reminding us that our salvation cannot be locally sourced within ourselves. Our instinct to begin again has to begin with God. The instinct may be human, but the power that makes it possible to fulfill the instinct comes only through the Word made flesh, the Son of God who takes our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary and who is born on Christmas Day.

What God does through Jesus Christ is to re-found the whole human project that began with Adam and Eve, a project that had become pretty fouled up through human willfulness and human sin, through our own pre-occupation with ourselves and our neglect of God and our neighbor. Human beings had become frozen in the endless data loop of death with no way out, but God re-set the old worn out machine of human civilization by re-founding our humanity in Jesus Christ. He was submissive to the Law and obedient to God’s command, obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8) as Paul wrote to the Philippians. The human race took a new direction in Jesus Christ, but it was a return to an old path, humanity living in communion with God and with one another. This only became possible through Jesus’ humility and willingness to give himself for the sake of the human race, for his own brothers and sisters who now are related to him. “Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness…” (Phil. 2: 6-7), again, as it says in Paul’s letter. God comes in Jesus Christ to take our own nature and to raise it up to new life in him.

What lies before us on this New Year’s Day is also mapped out for us in our reading from Paul. “Let the same mind be in you as it was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). Paul’s exhortation to his fellow disciples is also addressed to us: to let the mind of Christ be formed in us so that we may share his divine life, so that the new life we long for may be found within us. We can’t hit the re-set button ourselves or resource our own salvation but Jesus Christ has done that for us, creating a new humanity that we share in by sharing in Holy Baptism and in the Holy Eucharist. We come to the altar today to receive the heavenly food which will sustain our life in Christ. Some in this congregation will witness to the new life by re-affirming their Baptismal vows and by receiving the laying on of hands. We are witnessing Christ speaking his own mind, and that same mind being formed in ourselves and others. It is a day for new beginnings, for a new direction, for a new life, and we have that life in Christ.

- The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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