John 1. Verses 6-8, 19-28 In the much repeated advert for Sipsmith’s gin the goose takes you round the distillery and says of the process worker dealing with the juniper, “no body knows his real name. I just call him juniper guy. The chap replies “My name’s Craig”. Names are important
On the third Sunday of Advent the Church invites the disciples of Christ to consider John the Baptist and his role in the story of salvation. He appears on the scene and many people seem rather baffled as to who he is. “Who are you?” they ask. “Are you Elijah ?” . “No” John answers. “ Are you one of the prophets?” he answers again “no”. “Then who are you?” the crowd ask. To be mistaken for Elijah sounds like John appeared to the people around him to be a bit like Elijah. And I don’t mean he looked like him because no one would know that. But his words and approach sounded rather like Elijah. He was obviously regarded as being like one of the earlier prophets. Indeed, though he denies it, he appears to be a prophet, standing in a tradition of prophetic figures. Who are you is a searching question.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down….to make known your name” (Isa 64.1-2). What’s in a name? In past times, far more than nowadays, a person’s name was really important. It was chosen carefully. Remember the concern Moses expresses to know the name of the one who calls him to go to Pharoah. Tell him I AM has sent you. That name is mysterious in itself. And Jacob who wrestles with a mysterious figure to discover the name of his combatant and suffers a hip joint dislocation in the tussle. He is desperate to know the name of the one he wrestles with. Names were really important in ancient times. To know the name of someone meant you had some knowledge of them. Revealing your name to someone entailed a degree of vulnerability and intimacy. A person’s nature and identity was disclosed in some significant way by knowing their name. I remember once preaching at Skinningrove and speaking of my father and grandmother who had been born there. In an off the cuff comment I gave my grandmother’s maiden name of Corner and I could see the scales fall from one lady’s eyes. I commented on my great uncle John Corner who was a well known character who went by the nickname of Firey because like all the Corners he had ginger hair. Despite the fact that I look a bit like him with the Corner nose and that I have a ginger beard, she had not made the connection. I could see in her face a recognition (almost an epiphany) of who I was and how I fitted in to those she had known from times past. She saw me in a different light.
More common in past times than now, children were often called after previous generations of their family; so, it is not uncommon for the child to take their father or mother’s name as their middle name, as I was given. Christopher Charles Humble sons of Charles Humble. Sometimes it can be more convoluted than that and we might be called by the same name, after a relative from further back in history. Let me tell you a story of a musical event I went to once in York where choir members from various choirs attended. At that time I used to sing in a madrigal group. I was introduced to someone as the choirmaster of Kirkbymoorside Parish Church. I told him that my great great grandfather was buried in his churchyard and he asked “what was his name?” I replied “Christopher Humble” . “And what is your name?” he enquired. With a twinkle in my eye I replied “Christopher Humble”! The first Christopher Humble was born in 1829 and he was actually called after his grandfather The Revd Christopher Roberts, born 1760 who was in fact the son of Christopher Roberts. So Christopher goes back more than 200 years as a line of descent. This is an example of the fact that In some family’s the names keep repeating themselves for generations.
For example, both my grandfathers were named after their great grandfathers, because their mothers held these men in very high esteem. My paternal grandfather was named Richard Leonard Humble after his uncle and great grandfather Richard Humble and Leonard after his mother’s mother’s father Leonard Thompson who brought up his grandchildren. So the name Leonard lived on in my grandad for 180 years but longer than that because Leonard Thompson of Great Edstone York NR was the son of Leonard Thompson stretching back about 200 years!
More or less the same thing happens with my maternal grandfather who was named John Sowerby Hart father his mothers mother’s father John Sowerby. And the name went even further back because John Sowerby was the son of John Sowerby born 1750??. The name lived on because my uncle was named after his father as John Sowerby Hart and he died in 2007, thus the name lived for well over 250 years.
Sometimes choosing a name is tactical move. My mother’s cousin was name William Mead Harrison because the Meads were the original owners as yeoman farmers of Hill House Farm in Lealholm and the last Mead died without children so my grandmother’s uncle inherited the farm, William Harrison. He died without children and his nephew another William Harrison inherited the farm. His son was named William Mead Harrison to keep the family name going, possibly to stake a claim that the farm had a continuity stretching back to the Meads, which his grandmother was. He died in 2014 about 140 years after the last Mead died. The farm is still in the Harrison family now.
Sometimes children are named after footballers. The young mother in Naples who named her baby eg Deigo Armado Maradona Junior gave us a bit of a clue as to paternity! Sometimes children are named after the whole team if they are very successful! or other famous people or even battles. I smiled as a noticed a gravestone in Loftus cemetery recently from the nineteenth century when the child was called Horatio Nelson followed by the family surname. I wonder what teasing the boy received at school and whether he liked going to sea!
The one for whom we watch and wait in the season of Advent is of course Jesus Christ. His name was announced by an angel according to Luke 1.31 who tells Mary that he is to be named Jesus. She did not get to choose the name herself! And so, when he is named on the eighth day at his circumcision according to Luke 2.21, he is called Jesus and reference is made again to this name being given by the angel Gabriel. When John the Baptist was born there is a dispute about what he is to be called because Elizabeth says “his name is to be John” and the people are struck by consternation because no one in the family goes by this name, it is breaking with tradition. Zechariah who has been struck dumb is called for and he writes “his name is John” Luke 1. 59-66 and this naming unlocks his father’s tongue and caused amazement to be spread abroad.
In an age when being a number, a statistic is often how people feel about the systems that control our lives, people knowing our names and calling us by name is important. The Methodist Church’s membership guide is entitled “Called by name” refering back to Isaiah 43.
In a more significant sense, anyone baptised in the name of Trinity, is enrolled into a company of disciples of Christ. In a very real sense, we bear his name. So, as we journey through these days of Advent may we fulfil our high calling as followers of Christ, bearers of his name, witnesses to his life and light in our daily lives.
Isaiah desires that God will tear open the heavens and come down. This is exactly what we proclaim happens in the mystery of the incarnation that we are preparing to celebrate “the word became flesh and dwelt among us” Jn 1.14. God comes down to be among us in the form of a human being as a vulnerable baby. As Christians we are named after Jesus Christ our Saviour because we were baptised in his name and enrolled as his disciples. We belong to Christ, called by his name, commissioned to serve him in our lives. His name is the name we are charged to glorify not our own. So, I wonder what sort of a name we are known by or what sort of name our church community/organisation has within the local neighbourhood? As “Craig” in the Sipsmith’s advert reminds us names are important.