Comment from Harborough churches: What’s in a name?

Viewpoint by the Revd Christopher Brown, pastor of Market Harborough Baptist Church

I sometimes think the children of celebrity parents get a rough deal, because so often they receive the weirdest names. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their daughter ‘Apple’. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West called their first child ‘North’, making ‘North West’ (I just hope she’s really good at orienteering at school).

But without doubt the absolute weirdest of all was when earlier this year Elon Musk and his wife named their child ‘X Æ A-12’ Musk. Fancy having a go at pronouncing that? Do you know what your name means? Why not google it to find out. My name, Christopher, means ‘bearer of Christ’, which, since I am a pastor, is either a remarkable coincidence or mysteriously prophetic.

Naming your child has great significance in many cultures across the world, because a child’s name can tell of a significant family story, or remember a special relative, or it can capture our hopes for our child. During this Christmastime, I have been looking at what the names given to God’s Son mean – the child at the very heart of Christmas.

Names are incredibly important in the Bible, because they reveal things, and God’s Son was given the names Jesus and Immanuel. Immanuel means ‘God with us’, and this is huge, because it means that when Jesus was born as he was into scandal and poverty, into hardship and struggle, it was a sign that God had not rejected us, or deserted us, or abandoned us.

Rather, God is right here with us, in our brokenness, in our pain, in our suffering. God enters into our lives with his love, his compassion and his grace, and he walks with us, sustains us, empowers us to endure, and he promises to never leave us.

But there’s more, because the name Jesus means ‘God is salvation.’ But what does Jesus save us from? When, put simply, Jesus saves us from everything that would separate us from God and his love, his light and goodness, from his grace, his mercy and peace. Jesus came to save us from our brokenness, our frailty, our failings. This is equally huge, because as it says in John’s Gospel, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, Jesus, Immanuel, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world on that first Christmas to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The birth of Jesus changed the world forever, because even though our health can fail, our economy can fail, our plans can fail, we have this living, enduring hope in Jesus that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love – the greatest gift we can ever receive. Yes, some names are really quite weird (like my middle name, ‘Shenton’), but others reveal to us that the God who loves you has drawn near to you and is waiting to meet with you.

You are all in our prayers.

Revd Christopher Brown is the pastor of Market Harborough Baptist Church

www.mhbaptistchurch.org, @revcsbrown