Readings of the day: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80
Those
of us who have children or have otherwise ever participated in naming children:
What was your experience in naming your children? Did you have their names
picked out long in advance; right before the children’s birth; maybe within a
few days after their birth? From when I was a child, if a teacher or my parents
called me in a stern tone by my full name—“Warren Roger Schmidt, come here
right now”—or if my parents cycled through my sister’s and brother’s name (it
was even more ominous if they included the dogs’ or cats’ names) before calling
me, I knew I was in trouble!
John
the Baptist’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, were the type of parents who
were decisive in naming their child. “No, his name is John,” Elizabeth answers
for her still-mute husband Zechariah, silenced by an angel for doubting that
Elizabeth, in her advanced age, could conceive a child. Zechariah then supports
his wife, calling for a tablet on which he writes, “John is his name.”
Elizabeth and Zechariah give their child the name John over the objection of
some of their relatives, who protest that “There is no one among your relatives
who has this name.”
The
name John for Elizabeth’s and Zechariah’s child is not given out of the blue,
though. John means “God is gracious.” This name, John, reminds us of a few
verses before our Gospel reading today from Luke, when Elizabeth prophesies about
the child she has conceived: “So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has
seen fit [or when the Lord has been gracious, in some translations] to take
away my disgrace before others.”
I
suppose the name Elizabeth and Zechariah were expected to give John, Zechariah,
after his father, meaning “the LORD has remembered,” would have been a
perfectly appropriate name for this child. Maybe if Elizabeth and Zechariah
were anything like my parents, they may have wanted to give John a name that
was not too susceptible to shortened forms or schoolyard nicknames: “Hey,
Zack”! Or perhaps simply “Z., Jr”…
My
Old German-derived first name, Warren, fittingly meaning “keeper of animals,”
is not too common and not easily susceptible to being shortened. But my
Norman-derived second name, Roger, meaning “famous spear,” runs in my extended
family: My uncle is Roger and my great grandfather was also Roger. My Colombian
brother Basilians, because of their difficulty in pronouncing “Warren,” call me
Roger.
The name of John the Baptist, whose birth we celebrate
today, is an apt reminder to us that God is gracious to us now, as God has been
gracious to us going back to the first moments of creation. Through John’s
parents Elizabeth and Zechariah, we are reminded that “God is a promise, oath,
or abundance,” and that “the LORD has remembered” us and our needs. God sent
us, through Elizabeth and Zechariah, John, “God is gracious,” to be the
forerunner of Jesus, “God saves.”
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