The Danish Lutheran Church of Vancouver, B.C.

New Year Day

The readings for today are all about giving names. In the first reading, God tells Abram the following:
“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you”. I will “make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”
Many people will probably not put too much into the giving of the name in the above, but in its context, it is quite unique what happens to Abram.
Abram enters the Bible just after the story of the tower of Babel. In that story humanity had tried to reach the God’s by building a tower leading into heaven.
The reason for humanity to do this is to make a name for themselves. But it is not up to humans to give such names. It is up to God.
God therefore destroys the tower. God shows how humans cannot bless. Only God can. And giving a blessing is what he does as he gives Abram a name. A blessing that still is in effect for all with faith in their hearts.

This was the first reading. A reading that was all about how blessings are from God. All about how humans should trust in God more than they should trust in their own judgement and achievements, pride and prejudice.
In the second reading, we are not told about a name, but the reading builds a bridge between the story of Abram to the story of Jesus. I bridge on which we find ourselves as believers.
As believers, we are blessed with faith. Blessed with the same name that was given to Abram. A name that means that we no longer need a law as a disciplinarian.
Furthermore, the name makes all who has the name equal:
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
So states the reading.

In the third reading, Jesus is circumcised and received his name – a name that means God saves.
Throughout the entire Bible, Jesus receives approximately – wait for it – 135 titles. So, let us start repeating…
On the other hand: It is the first of January so I will give you a break. At least for the day.
Any way, Jesus is by far the most relatable name of all. It is the name he received as a human. Just as my name is Carsten, and your name is…
I just want shortly to sum up some of his other names:
His last name is Christ, which is a Greek word of the Hebrew word messiah. The words mean ‘the anointed’.
The Hebrew word puts him in a historical context as ‘the Messiah’ was a title prophets gave an expected saviour – a saviour Jesus came to be according to us, Christians.
The Greek word, Christ, became more of an ordinary last name as the Greek world did not expect a Messiah since they were not Jews.
Throughout the period of Advent, Jesus received the name ‘Immanuel’ also. It is Hebrew and means ‘God with us’.
Jesus is also both called the Son of God and the Son of Man. These two titles show his belonging to both the earthly and the divine world.
Jesus truly was a human being – a son of man – living among us. Yet, he also had a divine nature – he was the Son of God.

Now, this was a lot about names. What are we to bring with us into the new year from today’s readings. From todays talk of names. Well, to put it simple, I think what we should draw from today’s readings is both humbleness and trust.
We should trust in God. And we should be humble. In this context meaning that we maybe should be more hesitant in giving names to a lot of things.
And here I do not think of names we give to sons and daughters. Please keep doing that. But a way we often try to understand the world – grasp the world and comprehend it – is by giving someone or something a name.
This name could be a judgment: I judge you good or evil, just or unjust, right or wrong.
The name could also be given in fear because we do not dare to say what we truly mean, or it could be given in pride.
We give names for political reasons – a lot lately – and we give names out of our ever-changing feelings all though a name – I guess – should be more permanent.

In his speech yesterday, His Majesty King Frederik the 10th said something like what I have just argued. In his speech he said the following:
“In a time of increasing polarization, that nuance easily disappears. We risk reducing the world to its extremes when we draw up the fronts. “Are you for or against?”, they ask. We may find ourselves somewhere in between…
I have often borrowed someone else’s perspective and caught sight of something new. It can be challenging, but it is always enriching, regardless of whether we see things in the same way or not.
We should not let disagreements keep us from exchanging perceptions and positions. It is in this exchange that we could move and get closer to each other.”
To me, what was said in the above is that our giving of names as humans tend to lack nuances – especially in our more and more polarized world.
I agree that we because of this should always keep in mind to enrich ourselves by ‘exchanging perceptions and positions’ before we give out names.
Beside that, we probably also could be better at letting God give out names – as he did to Abram – instead of doing it ourselves. After all, we do not want to make a second tower of Bable. Such a tower will only bring more animosity to our world and put more distance between us.
Let us instead be joined. Not through something by us, but through something given to us: A Son – a Son of God and a Son of Man. Immanual. Jesus. Jesus Christ.
That will be my wish for our year to come.
I wish all of you a blessed New Year.
Amen.

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