Why the Name?

Our lord’s name was not selected by his parents but was a part of the divine annunciation to Joseph: “And thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

Once the significance of the name, Jesus (Saviour), is lost, the meaning of Christmas ceases to exist; for this intervention of God in human history has significance only as we understand its purpose.

That the Christian Gospel is a declaration of this divine intervention is the one thing that makes it relevant to each succeeding generation.

For man this intervention must begin with a recognition of its personal relevancy, redeeming it from theory and bringing it into the realm of immediate and eternal importance.

That the purpose of Christ’s coming into the world strikes at the very root of human pride should make us doubly wary lest having seen we fail to see, and having heard we fail to believe.

Once the reality and consequences of sin are explained away, the significance of Christmas vanishes. A lovely tradition? No more so than the birth of any other man. The commemorating of a marvelous gesture of love? Not unless the “gesture” is explained. A unifying spirit of brotherly love? Not unless the reason is understood.

We say it reverently but with deep feeling: Unless the reason for the first Christmas is admitted, its celebration can be blasphemous.

Strong words? Yes, because the greatest event of all history occurred when God sent his Son into the world to save sinning men from the guilt and penalty of their sins. To deny, ignore, or minimize the reason for his coming is a slap in the face of a loving and holy God.

Deep theology? Yes, for in the coming of God into the world in human flesh there are involved truths which no man can understand unless the Spirit of God teaches him.

Simple theology? Yes, for despite all the deep currents of God’s redemptive purposes in Christ, there is the marvelous simplicity of man’s need, God’s love, and eternal life through his Son—truths which even a little child can grasp and believe.

“For he shall save his people from their sins,” poses the fact of sin, its universality and effect, and man’s lostness because of it.

Sin and Christmas? What a depressing combination! Why spoil thoughts of Christmas by bringing in the sordid subject of evil? Why not emphasize the love demonstrated in the coming of the Christ-child? Why not think more of the angels, the wise men, the star, the shepherds, and the gifts?

All of these have their part in the Christmas story and in our thoughts about Christmas. But why Christmas? Why did Christ come into the world? We may shrink from a confrontation with truth, but to do so leaves us blind to the meaning of Christmas.

Christ came into the world because of the ugly fact of sin. He came to earth because people, the work of his creation, were lost, separated from God and in need of a Saviour.

Why the name? Because Christ’s coming was no sentimental gesture but a work of rescue. An example of love? Yes, a love so great that it might redeem. To meet a need? Yes, a need which has existed from man’s beginning and which will continue down to the end of time.

We are too sophisticated today to sing hymns like “Rescue the Perishing,” but that is the reason for the first Christmas.

We are much too “mature” to sing, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus”—but Calvary lay silent only a few miles north of Bethlehem on that first Christmas night, and there was the unseen but real shadow of a Cross as the breezes whispered across “the place of a skull.”

When the angel announced to terror-stricken shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10, 11), the glorious news was the coming of a Saviour.

Our Lord, his disciples, the writers of the Epistles, the early Church, all stressed the reality and effect of sin. That sin is no longer a popular subject for public preaching or theological discussions does not decrease its importance or relevance; it only indicates the distance that we have come from the vital realities of the Christian faith.

The first Christmas ushered in a “new deal” for humanity, a new frontier of hope for the sinner. With it came a new concept of ethics, a new dynamic for living, a new perspective for this life and for the one to come, all proceeding from the redemption that Christ came to effect and to offer to all who would believe.

While the reason for Christ’s coming is indicated in his Name, and while this work of redemption is made central in all of the Gospel, men have a strange tendency to explain away or play down its basic necessity. Lose sight of the depressing reality of sin with its tragic end for the sinner, and the joy of Christmas is blighted.

Where salvation is made central in the Christmas theme, there is true joy to the world. Where it is omitted, the songs, gifts, and gaiety of the season become an empty mockery. Unless we look beyond the manger to the Cross and to the empty tomb, we miss completely the reason for celebration itself.

In the councils of eternity the necessity for the advent into the world of the Lord of glory was known, and in the fullness of time—at exactly the right moment in human history and at the right spot—this divine plan for man’s redemption was set in motion.

Little wonder that the event took on all the attributes of the supernatural—for it was supernatural. Small wonder that it was the Holy Spirit who revealed to Joseph and Mary the divine plan, or that there was a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”—for the curse of sin was to be removed and estranged men were to be reconciled to God!

Christmas is a time of joy, hope, peace, thanksgiving, and praise because the One whose birth we celebrate was marvelous in his Person and in his Work. He was God in the person of his Son come to take away the sins of the world, to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, to be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; for the sins of men he was to be stricken, and God in infinite love and compassion was to lay on his sinless body the iniquity of us all.

There is a new note of gladness to “Joy to the World” when we look beyond the Bethlehem fields to Calvary, and then on to the mount across the Kidron in the east—when, knowing that he has saved us from our sins, we hear the words of angels again: “This same Jesus … shall so come in like manner,” and know that at that time we will meet him in the glorious company of the redeemed.

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