Sermon for the second Sunday in Lent

Sunday 20th February 2005

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

 

At the beginning of this year, it was reported that the previous year (2004) had been difficult for David Beckham. It had been topped off with news that the name ‘David’ is falling out of favour! Seemingly it is no longer in the top 50 boys’ names. And the survey of 300,000 babies born in 2004 found one little lad called, ‘Ikea’! The newspaper concerned asked the question, ‘was that because, like flat-packed furniture, he took so long to make?’

Can you even believe that after the TV series ‘Footballers Wives’, some parents started to call their newborn daughters ‘Chardonnay’ which is a name of a grape used in making white wine; not a name of a person!

I’m glad that today we have the names Rory James at our Baptism. Rory, I’ve been told means ‘red-haired’.
I often love to find out people’s middle names! It’s often quite funny, and in confirmation classes, we are meant to know all your Baptismal names. Sometimes there are some who are mortified by their middle names. It wouldn’t be fair to put them through such pain of embarrassment and I wouldn’t read out their full names… unless it was particularly funny!

Even at weddings I’m not allowed sometimes to use their full names although you’re meant to, at one particular stage, anyway.

But names mean something! Often to parents it’s incredibly important what their child is going to be called! So you’ve got to be very careful! We, deliberately, for the most part anyway, stayed away from family names, and names which were only in vogue for the time being, like ‘Kylie’ or what about my godson’s sister has the names, ‘Atalanta Flora Alice’. Wonderful!

There didn’t seem to be much discussion over Jesus’ name! It was made very clear to Joseph that the child to be born to Mary was to be called, ‘Jesus’! Why on earth ‘Jesus’? It wasn’t a particularly special name, in fact it is simply a form of the name Joshua and it means ‘He who saves’; you know that already. It was instructed to Joseph, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins”.

“God has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”. Charles Lamb once said: “If Shakespeare should come into this room, we would all rise; but if Jesus Christ should come in, we would all knell”…at the name of Jesus. There is power in that name; power to pray and power to heal.

You know that in prayer we approach the throne of grace because of Jesus. We have access to the Father ‘through Jesus’ or ‘in his name’. That is why we end our prayers with ‘through Jesus Christ’ or ‘in the name of Jesus Christ’. It cannot be on our own merit, but on what Christ has done for us. Access to God the Father is open and constant, not now limited to once a year when the Jewish High Priest entered the Holiest of Holies. The veil of the temple has been rent in twain…

During the American Civil War, a young soldier in the Union Army lost his older brother and his father in the battle of Gettysburg. The soldier decided to go to Washington, D.C. to see President Lincoln to ask for an exemption from military service so that he could go back and help his sister and mother with the spring planting on the farm. When he arrived in Washington, after having received permission from the military to go and plead his case, he went to the White House, approached the front gate and asked to see the President.

The guard on duty told him, “You can’t see the President, young man! Don’t you know there’s a war on? And the President is a very busy man! Now go away, son!”

So the young soldier left, very disheartened, and was sitting on a park bench, not for from the White House when a little boy came up to him. The lad said, ‘Soldier, you look very unhappy. What’s wrong?”
The soldier looked at the little boy, and told him his whole story about his brother and his father and the desperate situation at home with his sister and mother. The little boy listened intently, and at the end said, “I can help you, soldier” Ho got up, took the soldier by the hand and led him back to the front gate of the White House. Apparently, the guard didn’t even seem to notice them because they weren’t stopped. They walked straight through the front door of the White House and walked right in. When inside they walked right past generals and high-ranking officials, and no one said a word. The soldier couldn’t understand this.

Finally they reached the Oval Office itself- where the President was working- and the little boy didn’t even knock on the door. As led the soldier in, there was Abraham Lincoln and his Secretary of State, looking over battle plans that were laid out on the desk.

The President looked up at the boy and the soldier and said, “Good afternoon, Todd. Are you going to introduce me to your friend?

And Todd Lincoln, the son of the President, said, “Daddy this soldier needs to talk to you”. And right there and then, the soldier pled his case before President Lincoln and he received the exemption that he desired.

We have access to the Father because of Jesus Christ who intercedes for us. It is ‘through him’ and ‘in his name’. It is a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.