Tell Me Your Name

This year of 2024 holds some special excitement for my husband and me as we wait to welcome two new great granddaughters. We know what one of the babies will be named and are excited to learn the name of the other sweet girl.

Naming a child is an awesome task. Probably we could all share a name story. Maybe the story is how your parents determined what to name you. Perhaps it’s a nickname that you hold dear for yourself or for a loved one. Or maybe it’s how your name changed or evolved over the years evoking a change in you.

As people of God, I feel that names matter, and names can bring change. Think of the names that might arise from being a follower of Christ: Child of God, Body of Christ, Disciple of the Word, Bearer of Peace. These are just a few of the names that are declared to us, and they change our world. We bear these names, and God invites us to voice the names that our broken and hurting world needs. Think how we can bring hope, acknowledgment, and peace when we speak the precious name of Jesus.

And Jesus, himself, has so many sweet and beautiful names: Prince of Peace, Son of God, Son of Man, Messiah, and Jesus is as loving and sweet as his precious names.

In John 10:11-18 Jesus proclaims, “I am the good shepherd.” This is just one more wonderful name for our savior. In this reading we hear the special way his promises are continually there for us. Jesus willingly and knowingly has such love for all of us that brought us to the celebration of Easter and continues each day through the post-resurrection period. The love Jesus pours out is wonderous and impossibly deep, a love for us individually, and at the same time, for everyone. He wants everybody with him so that our world will begin to look different when we begin to believe his precious words and experience the new life in him. Jesus invites us to imagine this new world as Easter people following the Good Shepherd, the Savior, God’s Word in the flesh.

We are told in 1 John 3:1-7 that “we are God’s children now; we will be like him.” When I read those words, I was reminded of a recent conversation with my older son. He turned 50 a short while back, but told me that in his mind he feels about 27. That is, until he looks in the mirror and wonders who is looking back at him with gray hair starting to take over his once jet-black hair. I laughed when he told this story, as I always look in the mirror and feel that my mother is staring back. There is that genetic thread from both our known and unknown ancestors that finds its appearance in our own faces and the faces of our children.

But the scripture from 1 John pulls us a little deeper into that mirror as the author writes to children of all ages and reminds us all of our divine parentage. “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” To be a child of God is to be made in God’s likeness. This likeness cannot be caught in our mirrors. Instead, it is manifested in our engagement, compassion, and in our divine righteousness. It’s a thread that laces through all of us, weaving us into a large and stunning familial tapestry.

Our God who is the God of Love enfolds each and everyone of us into his arms. He whispers our names and calls us his beloved children.

The baptismal service at my church ends with the words: “Child of God, you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” God is in our lives making miraculous things happen. Whatever name we have been given or the nickname we cherish or despise, we are given the assurance that as children of God we abide in him and he abides in us. What a wonderful thought to have as we look in the mirror each morning as we start every day anew.