What's In a Name?

Exodus 3:1-14; John 8:48-59

February 21, 2021 • Mount Pleasant UMC

How many of you know what your name means? [Take a few responses.] Maybe I’ve shared before that my name is taken from the name of the Greek god of wine, Dionysius—which is odd because neither of my parents drink. But my name fit into the family—we were “the four “D’s”—Dick, Donna, Dennis and Doug. And a lot of names are chosen that way, for the way they sound. How else do you explain names like Blip, Kiwi, Cheese, Panda and Rocket? Those names all appear on Time Magazine’s “most unusual names” list. And then there are the names that go beyond “unusual” to just plain…well, I’m gonna say it, weird. Some of you may have seen when Elon Musk had a son, they named him X Æ A-Xii, and it’s apparently pronounced “X Ash A-Twelve.” Yeah, I don’t even know what to do with that. Some other…interesting names from 2020 include Portabella (how’d you like to be named after fungus), Mordax (which sounds like it’s from Lord of the Rings), and the inevitable twins named Covid and Corona (https://babyyumyum.co.za/10-of-the-weirdest-baby-names-of-2020/). Those poor kids when they grow up! Anyway, Shakespeare would have said it doesn’t matter. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet asks the question, “What’s in a name?” And she answers her own question: “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, according to Shakespeare, the name doesn’t really matter. Who cares if the child is called Covid or Blip or Cheese?

And yet, names, whether we intend them to or not, often tell us something about a person, or about their family or heritage. Knowing someone’s name at the very least, gives you a little information about them. When we were expecting Christopher, we were pretty tight-lipped about the names we had picked out. One of our youth at the time gave us a 3x5 notecard full of names she thought would work just fine; I think I still have that card somewhere. But we wanted names for our kids that we not only liked but that meant something. Somewhere along the way, we decided to pick one name from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. Doing that is not some sort of magic act, but for us, we wanted the names to define our kids. And while “Christopher” is not found in the Bible, it means “Christ-bearer,” so it’s sort of there. His middle name, David, comes from King David. And Rachel Elizabeth is named after one of Jacob’s wives in the Old Testament and the mother of John the Baptist in the New. Rachel means “little lamb” or “lamb of God.”

Picking names that have significant meaning is an ancient tradition. In Biblical times, names were given to children in the hopes that they would grow into them, that they would become who their name proclaimed them to be. Names were sort of anticipatory, then, and knowing a person’s name helped you to know about that person—or at least what their parents hoped for them. And so it’s a bit amazing that we get all the way through the book of Genesis and into the first chapters of Exodus before anyone asks God what his name is. In fact, it’s not until a crisis comes, a crisis of epic proportions, that anyone seems to even wonder what God’s name is. And when he is asked, God gives a cryptic answer. He says his name is “I Am.”

We are in the season of Lent, the annual part of the church calendar when we prepare ourselves for the cross. These forty days are also typically a time when we engage in some practices or studies to try to get to know Jesus better. For our part on Sunday mornings, we’re going to be looking at what are commonly called the “I Am” statements of Jesus. Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus makes seven proclamations using that phrase:

• “I am the bread of life.”
• “I am the light of the world.”
• “I am the good shepherd.”
• “I am the vine.”
• “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
• “I am the gate.” and
• “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Each of these are full of meaning. They all tell us something about Jesus, and they tell us something about what it means to be his followers. But before we can look at the specifics of each statement, I want to step back and consider why Jesus using those two words—I am—caused such a stir and created such hatred among the religious leaders of his day. And to do that, we need to go all the way back to the desert, the Sinai desert, to an encounter Moses had with a burning bush in Exodus 3.

You may remember that, due to attempted governmental population control, Moses ended up being raised in the royal palace. He was an adopted son of the Pharaoh, until he killed a man. Everyone knew he was guilty, so he ran and spent forty years in the desert, tending sheep. He spent his middle adult years chasing sheep, finding water and getting to know the desolate area that was and is Sinai. And then, one day, one ordinary working day, he notices a bush that is on fire but is not consumed. A lot of folks spend a lot of time debating how that could happen, but honestly even the author of Exodus isn’t all that interested in that question (cf. Goldingay, Exodus & Leviticus for Everyone, pg. 15). The point is that it was something that caught Moses’ attention, and I wonder how many times in the next forty years he wished he had just walked on by. Do you suppose he ever kicked himself for not saying, “That’s strange. The bush is on fire. But I’ve got stuff to do”? No, Moses goes over to look at it and he hears God’s voice calling him to go and rescue God’s people in Egypt. God says, “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (3:10).

Immediately, Moses begins objecting. First of all, he questions his own ability. “Who am I,” he says, “that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (3:11). I’m nobody, God. I’m just a lowly shepherd. Now, God could have reminded him of his pretty impressive credentials. He was raised in the Pharaoh’s court. He knows the way the palace works. He knows the government and he is known by those who are in power. But Moses knows all that; God doesn’t need to remind him of it. His fake humility at this point does not impress God. And, in essence, God tells him that he’s right. He is nobody. God tells him, “You’re right, Moses. You’re not strong enough to do this on your own. But I will be with you, and with me, you can do anything.”

Now, that should have been enough for Moses, wouldn’t you think? I mean, the creator of the universe, one who can make a bush burn without being burned up, has just told you, “I’m on your side. I will be with you.” But that’s not enough for Moses. Now he’s got a question for this one who promised to be with him. “What is your name?” he asks God (3:13). Now, why does he ask that question? It’s never been an issue before this. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and countless others got along just fine without knowing God’s name. Why does Moses need to know? Well, remember Moses was raised as an Egyptian. It was very important to the Egyptians to know the names of their gods, because then, if they knew the name, they could have a measure of control over their gods. More than that, names in Egyptian culture were believed to have magical powers. So if you knew someone’s name, you could, in effect, possess some of their authority and power (Fuquay, The God We Can Know, pg. 15). Moses wants that, no doubt. He is a fugitive. I don’t know if there was a statute of limitations on his crime in ancient Egypt, but he’s been on the run for forty years now. And God wants him to go into the palace and show his face and demand the release of Pharaoh’s work force? For Moses in that moment, it’s not enough that God has promised to be with him. He wants some of God’s power, some sort of extra strength so that he will be protected. “What is your name?” he asks. I want to make sure you’re with me, and I can do that by knowing who you are.

But here’s the thing: God wants to be known. He’s not trying to hide from Moses or from us. He is the God we can know. He’s not avoiding us. He’s not playing games with us. He wants us to know him. But the best way for Moses to get to know God is to go on mission with him, to answer the call. So, probably in part to get him moving, God answers the question—and scholars and Bible teachers have been debating God’s answer for thousands of years. When Moses asks for God’s name, God says, “I am.” The Hebrew word is Yahweh, or sometimes you’ll see it written as “Jehovah,” which is really a Germanized version of the Hebrew word. Yahweh—I am. That’s not much of a name, we think What does it really mean?

“Yahweh” has been translated a variety of ways; your Bibles may give alternate translations in the footnotes because, honestly, we’re not sure how to translate it. It’s close to the Hebrew verb for “to be,” which is why it’s most often translated as “I am.” It can also be translated as “I am who I am,” which sort of makes me think of Popeye, or “I am the one who causes to be,” the one who made everything, the one without whom you wouldn’t be alive. Here’s something to think about: every other god is named by human beings. All the Greek gods, all the Roman gods (which were pretty much the same only with different names), all the Canaanite and Egyptian gods had been named by their followers, by their worshippers. But this God is not like that. This God names and defines himself. He is. “I am” (cf. Oswalt, “Exodus,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 1, pg. 303; Fuquay 16; Goldingay 20).

And that means God is both transcendent and immanent. I spent a lot of money in seminary to learn those words. Aren’t you impressed? Money well spent! Transcendence means God is absolutely other than we are. God is different. God is not just a big human being. He is not, as the song once said, “just a slob like one of us.” He is the one from whom all creation comes, and that’s one reason it always amuses me when we, as human beings, decide that we know as well or better than God. We think we know how things ought to work, how it all ought to play out. A few years ago, our furnace went out at the parsonage. I woke up one morning and noticed it was chilly in the house, so I went down to the furnace room, and in my vast furnace knowledge I stood there and looked at it. And do you know what I determined, after intense studying of the device? It was broken. It didn’t work I have no training and no expertise in furnace repair, but I am smart enough to call someone who knows how to build and rebuild them. I could try to get in there and fix it myself, but I know I would end up with a mess. And when the repairman came to look at it, he started telling me, in furnace man lingo, what was wrong with it. I’m sure the look on my face was just one of confusion, because even though it made sense to him, it didn’t mean anything to me. My only question was, “Can you fix it?” I didn’t tell him how to fix it; I trusted him to do it the way it ought to be done. When we act like God ought to do things our way or explain himself to us, we’re forgetting that God is not like us. God is other than us and, in the words of Isaiah (55:9), his understanding is far above ours. We can’t understand what he is up to all the time. He is the creator; we are not. He knows how it works; we don’t. He is. He is other than us.

And yet, at the same time he is immanent. That means he is close, nearby, as close as your very breath. This God who is so different than us is not off somewhere else, distant, removed from your life here. He is not Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover.” He is “I Am.” He is personally involved with us. We can talk to him. We can know him. He invites us to walk with him. And he has broken into history (cf. Oswalt 311-312). Christians believe that the most prominent way we experienced this God is when he chose to become flesh and blood in the person of Jesus. The God who created the universe gave up his glory and was born in a stable. He walked walk among us, he showed us how to live, and ultimately, he gave his life on a cross for the salvation of the world. Again, people want to know how that could be. Explain it to me in detail. But we can’t. It’s only as we come to know him in a personal way that it makes any measure of sense, and even then, after years of walking with him, I still can’t explain it all. We just know because he is with us. He is.

And Jesus claimed that title. Aside from the “I Am” claims that we’re going to look at over the next few weeks, Jesus came right out and claimed God’s name for himself. It was in the middle of yet another dispute with the religious leaders, this one centered on Jesus’ identity. The religious leaders knew that Jesus had gained quite a following, and as every candidate for public office knows, the best way to discredit someone and disperse their following is to attack their character, who they are. Today, we do that by digging up old and obscure tweets or other social media posts. In Jesus’ day, they did in face-to-face debate. And so, after a lengthy discussion in John 8, the religious leaders finally come right out and attack Jesus personally. “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” (8:48). Now, they knew he wasn’t ethnically a Samaritan; he was from Galilee, north of Samaria. But saying that in the first century was like saying, “You’re from the wrong side of the tracks. You believe the wrong things” (cf. Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 113; Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pgs. 129-130). Jesus doesn’t even respond to that accusation. Instead, he focuses on the charge of demon possession. And there’s this back and forth between him and the religious leaders, as they name everything they disagree with as demon possession. Do we see any echoes of the way we do this today, as we unfriend people we disagree with? As we find it impossible to have any sort of conversation with someone from another viewpoint?

Then Jesus claims to know Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation. That’s when they they really get upset. “You are not yet fifty years old,” they say, “and you have seen Abraham!” (8:57). In other words, Abraham’s been dead a long time. You haven’t seen him. You don’t know him. And that’s when Jesus drops the mic: “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (8:58). Not “I was.” Not “I could have been.” “I am.” Jesus is directly claiming to be God at that moment; he’s taking God’s name for himself. Before Abraham was, I am. In other words, not only is he God, but his word precedes Abraham. He’s more important than Abraham. No wonder they do what the Old Testament tells them to do when someone blasphemes. They pick up stones and intend to kill him (cf. Leviticus 24:16; Card 115). At that moment, Jesus has drawn a line in the proverbial sand. He is “I Am.” Either the people will accept him as such and enjoy his presence forever. Or they will reject him and find little peace. He is. Just as he was for Moses, he is for us today. What’s in a name? What’s in that name? Everything.

The primary difference between Christian faith and other major world religions is God’s presence, God’s availability. The Christian faith is not about following a list of rules in order to please God or get God’s approval, though there is a way of life God calls us to. But the rules are not the point. The Christian faith is not about rituals, though there are rituals that we do. But the rituals are not the point. The Christian faith reminds us that, because of Jesus and in Jesus, God is present. He is with us. He is “I Am,” not “I will be” and not “I was.” “I am.” Right now. Right here. With us. And I don’t know about you, but I am thankful for that. I don’t know what I would do without his presence.

It’s caused me to remember several times in my own life when God was very much “I Am” to me. My Grandma Irick had been a huge part of my life and my faith development. Grandma taught Sunday School for so many years, and then she had her first stroke and began to struggle with her health. It was hard to watch; Grandma had always been so energetic. And she had always been so faithful to Jesus, so when the stroke changed her, she began to say things she never would have said and do things she wouldn’t have done. But I’ll never forget when the school nurse came to Geometry class to get me. Normally, I would have welcomed anything to get out of Mr. Reed’s class, but I knew in my gut what had happened. Grandma had died, and Mrs. Mosson took me to the office to call home. The most vivid image I have of the next few days is standing on the hillside at the Geetingsville Cemetery. In my mind, it’s cloudy and windy but I don’t know if that’s how it really was or not. I just remember standing there and losing it. A friend took me in his arms and in the warmth of that embrace, I felt the presence of “I Am.”

Several years later, when I was a seminary student, I began to have the first symptoms related to my bad heart valve. Actually, I had been experiencing shortness of breath for several days, but like a good man, I kept it to myself. It would pass, I told myself. Until one evening, walking around Wilmore, I mentioned to Cathy that I was short of breath, and I got the usual, “How long has this been going on?” The next day, we were headed back to Indiana to see my cardiologist. He put me in the hospital for monitoring and to try some new medicine. At that point, I really didn’t know what was going to happen, and that evening, when Cathy left to go stay with my parents for the night, God and I spent some time together. I was scared. I’d never been in the hospital overnight before. So much of the night, I was praying and God showed up in that hospital room, giving me a peace I don’t think I had ever experienced before. He was “I Am” in that hospital room.

I’ve also relied on God being “I Am” in the midst of difficult times in ministry. I’m not trying to complain, because I know all of us face difficult times and challenges and struggles in the work we do. No matter what your work is, though, for most people there comes a time when you wonder if this is really it. Is this what you should be doing? And I’ve wrestled with that on several occasions. There are times it would be easier to find a job that doesn’t have Sunday work hours, that doesn’t have so many meetings, that doesn’t have to deal with people who have cancer, or people who take their own lives, or struggling marriages or just the politics in church in general. Again, my struggles are not yours, but every job has things like that. And those things wear you out. I’ve had many times where I’ve asked God if there isn't something else he’d rather have me do. I mean, I answered a call to ministry when I was in college. Maybe that call has expired. Maybe it’s time to move on. And, honestly, there are times when I can’t always sense God’s presence, but when I slow down, when I get quiet, when I choose to spend time with God, he is always right there. He is “I Am.” He calls me again. He doesn’t say, “Just rely on that call to ministry you experienced thirty-three years ago.” He says, “I Am.” I will be with you, and more than that, I am with you. Right here. Right now.

He is available; he wants to be with you. As we enter this Lenten season, we’re going to discover many different facets to Jesus’ ministry and personality. We’re going to learn a lot about how he wants to draw near to us. And we’re going to see in what way our lives can be changed by his presence. But, this morning, I invite you to spend this week resting in the assurance that he is with you. He is “I Am.” If we ask God, “What’s in a name?” we get the answer back, “God’s very presence.” His name tells us he is there. And that’s enough for us to be able to take one more step, keep going another day. As long as he is with us, we can push forward into anything.

There is a story told of a young family shattered by the sudden death of the mother. After the funeral, the young husband came home with his two boys, and silently they got ready for an early bedtime. He had no strength left to do anything else. He tucked the boys into bed and then tried to go to sleep himself. Just as he was close to drifting off, he heard the youngest boy begin to cry, then he heard those heart-breaking words, “I want mommy.” After waiting for a few moments, the father got up, went into his son’s room, picked him up and brought him back to bed with him. There, in the darkness, these two tried to find rest. Again, just as he was about to drift off, the father felt two tiny hands reaching out toward him. “Daddy,” the boy said, “is your face toward me?” The father assured his son that it was, and the boy’s hands touched his face to confirm that fact. Then he said, “Okay, if your face is toward me, I think I can sleep.” And pretty soon, the father heard the gentle breathing that meant rest had come.

God told Moses, “My name is ‘I Am.’ I am for you. I am with you. I am turned toward you.” And ultimately in Jesus, God turned his face toward us. He is with us. He is present—not just some distant time in a distant land, but right here, right now. He is “I Am,” and no matter what you’re going through, he has promised to be with you, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Because he is with us, we can go to him in prayer, knowing that he is here and he hears our cries. Let’s pray.