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0 Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. At the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth: and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

"And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child, His name was called JESUS, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb."

What's in a name? Well I'm not sure I really know. We are far removed from the actual physical creation of all that is seen and unseen. We in America are far removed from any decent sense of understanding language, much less Proper Names. We used to call someone's first name their "Christian" name, because it was given to them at the time of their chrismation; their Holy Baptism and sealing with chrism (oil). Of course the person also had what we called his "surname" to indicate which family or tribe he came from. We call it the "last name." Surnames are for identification and ownership. If you were a Watson, Erickson, Johnson, or a MacMurry, McDonald, McQuillan, you were "sons" of Wat, Erick, John, Murray, Donald or Quillan.

One's first name, (Christian name), also gave identity and ownership; a greater link to be sure, for it is eternal.

There is probably no greater hurt inflicted on a parent's familial pride then when a child, after reaching the age of emancipation, legally changes their name. A rejection of one's family name (surname or Christian name) is a symbolic rejection of the giver or givers of said name. We don't name ourselves. Those that bring us into the world, the life-givers, give us our names as well as our care, nourishment and love.

Names mean things. Names have essence, reality and inner truth. When Adam named the animals they became what he called them. Only a Lion is a Lion, only a duckling is a duckling.

We have names because our parents gave them to us. But really, we only have names because God has given them to us. We have names because God has a name. He is the Lord, yes. He is God, yes. But His name, as He chose to reveal it to Moses, is the great "Tetragrammaton," the four Hebrew consonants, which mean "I AM." Truth: our creator has no beginning, no end, no time in which He was not; He is "I AM." But He loves us so much that, that is not how He interacts with us. He doesn't wish to be addressed as sovereign deity. He doesn't wish to remain an impenetrable Mystic Trinity; an unapproachable essence. He comes to you in flesh and blood; with a name which you may address Him with; a name which is HIS, because this Name describes not only what He did, and does, but what He truly is. Yes the name was given to Him before He was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. He was redeemer before Bethlehem; He has been savior, friend, lover, and goodness, from before eternity.

When the little baby, only eight days old, was given the name Jesus, He was simply being publicly designated to be what He was/is. To be a savior means there is someone who needs to be saved; that there is someone dead who needs to be brought back to life. If that's not you, if you don't wish to acknowledge your sins, your helplessness, your treason to your Father in thought, word and deed, then you have no part of Jesus. You don't need a savior if you aren't in need of salvation.

But you are; you are in need of being saved.

You have the old flesh of Adam wrapped tightly around you like a suffocating water-torture sheet. You have your sins growing into an ugly, encrusted, hardened cocoon of filth all around your body...squeezing the life right out of you. You can't free yourself from Satan's handcuffs and from the world's strait-jacket. You need a savior.

"And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child..."

In the beginning this "Baby," with the Father and the Paraclete, made everything from nothing and did it in six days. In the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Trinity, the Son---the Jesus pre-incamation, rested on the Seventh Day. And then, on the Eighth Day, eternity began again for all His creatures, including His plan of Salvation, of Incarnation, of Love. The "eighth" day is the day that follows the seventh, yes; but it is also the First Day all over again. It is the first day of the next week; it is the First Day of the New Testament. It is the Day that the "Baby" would rise from the dead---the real "Son-Day. "

How meet, right and salutary that Jesus would begin His work of "passive obedience" on your behalf on the Eighth Day. There, on that day, that New Day of a New Year, a New Era, a New Eternity, He would suffer; He would have His pure, innocent, and holy Body cut upon. He would bleed---For You. The drops of his infant blood pointed to the river of blood which would flow freely from Calvary. His flesh being "cut off" was a "type" of all sinful flesh which would be forever cut off on the cross. This is the same sinful "spiritual foreskin" which is cut off in baptism, and in the daily confessions which flow from its new birth and power in the Spirit.

There can be no Name for you without the shedding of blood, the sacrifice for sin. There is no name for your redeemer God apart from His suffering servant hood. His shedding of blood.

You are alive again---because of Jesus.

You are forgiven for everything---because of Jesus.

You are one with God through the Flesh and Blood of His only-begotten---because of Jesus.

Jesus: "He Saves," "Savior."

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. At the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth: and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Happy New Eternity.

In the Name + of Jesus