Jesus, Our Savior
When I was growing up I went to school with a kid named Jesus.
True story.
In the fourth grade, in Mrs. Kennedy’s class, I had a classmate named Jesus — now never mind the fact that he pronounced it differently, it was spelled it J-E-S-U-S, and in the fourth grade I thought that was weird.
And I thought it was weird for all the obvious reasons. I thought that only Jesus could have the name “Jesus” because … he’s Jesus, right?
How in the world could this kid in my class — just this normal kid — how could this kid call himself Jesus?
Well, the answer is because “Jesus” is a normal name that countless normal kids have had for most of human history — which is something we tend to forget so many years removed from the Gospel of Matthew, which is why this morning I want us to think about that. Looking here at Matthew 1:21, for this second Advent sermon, we’re going to focus on the name of Jesus and what it means. And there are just three simple things I want to show you in this passage:
The name of Jesus is personal.
The meaning of his name was on purpose.
The fulfillment of the meaning was promised.
Personal. Purposed. Promised. Let’s pray:
Our Father in heaven, thank you for the Spirit of your Son whom you have poured into our hearts. By his power, please show us the glory of your Son today, the glory of Jesus. We ask this in his name, amen.
#1. The name of Jesus is personal.
Of the four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — there are two birth narratives of Jesus, one in Matthew and one in Luke.
In Luke’s Gospel, the perspective is from Mary, but in Matthew’s Gospel, the perspective is from Jospeh. And really, the focus here in Matthew is on the instructions the angel gave to Joseph. The angel tells Joseph to do two things:
He is to take Mary as his wife — Joseph should not be worried about her pregnancy because she has miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit. Marry that girl, the angel says.
Joseph is to name the son that Mary will bear “Jesus.” We see that plain as day in verse 21. Look at verse 21: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus…”
And now before we get into the meaning of this name, which is important [hand motion second point], first I just want to slow down and ponder the fact that Jesus has a name.
Jesus has a given name, a first name — what some call a Christian name. [Y’all heard that before?] Now we don’t talk that way in America, but in the UK (as a carryover from the Middle Ages), someone’s first name is often referred to as their “Christian name.” And I didn’t always know this.
Several years ago I had the honor of spending some time with the late J. I. Packer, who was a great British theologian, a modern-day Puritan, a hero for me, and when we first met he asked me my “Christian name” — and I had no clue what he was talking about (but it sounded awesome). I just guessed and told him my first name, which luckily was right!
Your first name is your Christian name, and so Jesus’s “Christian name” — if we could say that — was “Jesus.” It was his first name just like you have a first name, and the name “Jesus” was a common name at that time.
Now it was a special name, as we’re gonna see, but it was also not a special name in that a lot of Jewish boys were named Jesus. The name “Jesus” back then would have been about as common as the name “Mike” is for us.
“Jesus” was a common name!
We see that even in the New Testament there were other men named Jesus. At the end of Colossians, Paul mentions that one of his fellow missionaries was a man named “Jesus who is called Justus” (see Colossians 4:11). This was a guy whose given name was “Jesus”, but he started going by Justus — which made sense for him as a missionary. Could you imagine being a missionary going into a city to spread the good news of someone who had the same name as you?
I’m here to tell you the good news of Mike. And someone says, What’s your name? … Mike.
We have to understand that the name “Jesus” was that common, and by human measures it was not an impressive name.
Isaiah 53:2 says that Jesus “had no form or majesty that we should look at him” and we could add: he had no name that would cause us to turn our heads. There were three other kids in Jesus’s fourth grade class named Jesus!
But see, that’s actually part of the glory.
Jesus Once Lost His Teeth
The first name of Jesus being Jesus was common, but it was his name. It was his personal name that points to his humanity — Jesus’s name points to his realness. Do you see how this works?
The fact that Jesus had a name is because Jesus was a real man. And first he was a real boy! He had skin and bones and hair and eyes and fingernails and teeth — when Jesus was six years old and lost his front two teeth, he lost Jesus’s teeth.
Our six year old Noah has lost his front two teeth now, and while we were having dinner a few nights ago, I asked Noah to give us all a big smile, and he did, and of course there’s nothing there, which is the best. And I told the kids to imagine that Jesus once had a smile that looked like that.
He did.
There was a time when Jesus lost Jesus’s teeth. Not an angel’s teeth. Not a spirit’s teeth. Not a demigod’s teeth. They were Jesus’s teeth — they were the teeth of a real boy named Jesus who was (and is) God become a real man with a name.
This is more stunning than we recognize. Jesus would have been like anybody in this room.
Cringingly, Painfully Personal
One subtle thing that we do at Cities Church — it’s subtle, but intentional — is that we refer to Jesus as “Jesus” as often as we can. We of course refer to him by his titles, like “Lord” and “Christ” (which the New Testament often does) — it’s good and right to use those words.
But we also mean to say “Jesus” a lot — and that’s because the name Jesus, more so than his titles, reminds us of his realness. “Jesus” is the personal name of a real person.
I once read a novelist who I thought captured the power of this so well. He was writing about the experience of someone driving through a city and seeing signs everywhere. Which happens to us all the time. On my way here this morning, on Snelling Avenue:
I saw a sign about why we should all be vegan — it was a billboard with a big turkey face on it
There was a sign about making sure your house is heated well for winter
There was another sign about Cub grocery stores now doing delivery and pickup
We see signs all the time, and every now and then — and I know you’ve seen this before somewhere — every now and then, we’ll see a sign, or we’ll see the words, “Jesus saves.”
Maybe you’ve seen this before at a sporting event, with someone holding a sign. Or maybe you’re stopped at a red light, under a bridge, and you look over and see spray-painted on the concrete wall, “Jesus saves.” We’ve all seen those words somewhere. Now listen to this description of the experience of seeing those words:
There is something in the name “Jesus” itself that embarrasses us when it stands naked and alone like that, just Jesus with no title to soften the blow. It seems to me that the words “Christ Saves” would not bother us half so much because they have a kind of objective, theological ring to them, whereas “Jesus Saves” seems cringingly, painfully personal — somebody named Jesus, of all names, saving somebody named whatever your name happens to be.†
Jesus was his name. His name was Jesus. And it still is.
We’re gonna talk about this in a few weeks, but don’t think that after the Resurrection and Ascension that Jesus dropped his first name and now he only goes by titles. No no no! Because he is still a man, in glorified human flesh, the God-man, Jesus still goes by Jesus. Call him by his name!
And imagine as best as you can when you address him by his name that you are talking to a human more alive than you are. He’s still got hair and skin and eyes and teeth (adult teeth). Whatever that means in a glorified body, that’s what he’s got. His name is Jesus; that’s his personal name; and we can call him that.
So 1) the name of Jesus is personal; 2) the meaning of his name was on purpose.
#2. The meaning of his name was on purpose.
So “Jesus” was not only a common name, but it was also a significant name. It was a name given to Jesus on purpose. God didn’t draw the name out of a hat, but he gave Jesus the particular name “Jesus” because of what the name meant. And we can see this in what the angel said, verse 21:
You shall call his name Jesus, for [because] he will save his people from their sins.
You see that? First, here’s a little background on the word “Jesus.” Jesus is an English word translated from the Greek word Iesous. And the Greek Iesous is from the Hebrew word Yeshua — and “Yeshua” in Hebrew is translated into English as … [anybody know?] “Joshua.”
So the Greek-English, Iesous/Jesus, comes from the Hebrew Yeshua.
And well, the Hebrew name Yeshua has two parts: the first part “Ya” is short for Yahweh, God; the second part “hoshea” means salvation. And so if you put them together, Yeshua means, literally: Yahweh saves. The angel then is telling Joseph:
You shall call his name Yahweh saves because that’s what he will do.
And I think implicit in the name “Jesus” is not just that he’s going save, but it’s that he is Yahweh become man who will save as Yahweh. We’re gonna see this in verse 23, but just look at verse 21 again. The angel says:
Call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
None of the other kids in Jesus’s fourth grade class had a people! But Jesus of Nazareth, son of Jospeh, he did.
Jesus had — has — a people … and in the most literal way possible, Jesus lived up to his name. His name means that he saves, and he does.
Our Society and Its Standards
It always strikes me a little funny this time of the year when our society tries to respect Jesus as a historical figure, but denies that he’s a Savior. [You know what I’m talking about?] You see this a lot this time of year.
Last week Mike Schumann had the latest TIME magazine issue all about who Jesus is; it had a big picture of Jesus’s face on the cover. You can also see this stuff on the History channel, or wherever. It’s the whole “search for Jesus” thing, and whatever it is, it all tends to respect Jesus as a moral leader, right?
Our society, at large, tends to see Jesus as a good person.
And the reason our society does this, I think, is actually connected to a deeper cultural issue that has to do with standards.
Whether we admit or not, our society really cares about standards.
Our society believes that there is a way to live, and there are rules that govern that way. See, for those who reject the moral vision of God, they don’t live without a moral vision, they just have to adopt another one, which is the spirit of the age — and the pressure for all of us to adopt that same vision is all around us. In fact, because of social media, I think you could argue that this is more prevalent now than ever. Whether it’s something like:
A whole new vocabulary you’re now supposed to use, or
Certain signs you need to have in your front yard, or
Invisible layers of social dynamics of which you must be aware —
— there are rules everywhere in our society that we’re expected to conform to, and if you don’t, there’s no room for other views, there’s no exchange of ideas, and there’s no forgiveness, you just get cancelled.
Our society tyrannically imposes standards on one another, and the result of that is pride and anxiety. And of course it does.
Because when the so-called guardians of this social order say you measure up, then you feel on top of the world and now you get to start judging everybody else;
BUT until you get that approval, until you’re deputized to judge others, you will wear yourself out trying to be enough. Trying to conform. Trying to be “IN.” Look, we get how this works. Culturally, we care about standards!
And somehow Jesus always gets brought in as a positive example.
Our society likes Jesus as a moral leader, and the way they reconfigure him, he somehow always agrees with whatever their activism is about and he only opposes those who disagree with you.
It really is amazing to me how so many people in our society think that Jesus is okay with 21st century American sexual ethics. I mean it’s insane. It’s also insane that some think Jesus would defend cruelty.
See. here’s the thing: when Jesus came, he condemned every standard of every spirit of every age, because he came as the standard for humans sent from God — and part of the message of Jesus’s life and death is that none of us are enough. None. We all fall short. Nobody measures up. Nobody gets affirmed. Which is why he came to SAVE. See!
We don’t need to be approved in our sins, we need to be saved from our sins!
And until we understand that, we will never understand Jesus.
Look, Jesus indeed is our true standard — we conform to him — but first, Jesus is our Savior! — and you cannot ignore that because that’s what his name means. His purpose was to save —
“You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Jesus Came to Save You
And Jesus himself understood this better than anybody. There’s a moment later in the Gospel of Matthew where we can see this. Matthew Chapter 9:
Jesus was having lunch, sitting around a table, and “behold, many tax collectors and sinners came” and they were hanging out with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees (the self-righteous religious leaders of the day) when they saw Jesus doing this, they didn’t understand it.
They said: How can Jesus, this moral leader, spend time with these sinners?
This is what Jesus said to them: He said,
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. …
Then he said:
… I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. (See Mattew 9:10–13)
Later Jesus said that he came “to seek and to save the lost” (see Luke 19:10).
Look, I don’t exactly how you perceive of yourself this morning, but the Bible tells us that we all are sick, we all are sinners, we all are lost, and that’s why Jesus came. That’s why Christmas exists. Hey, I want you to hear this: Jesus came to save you.
That was his purpose. That’s what his name means.
So here’s the last point. The meaning of his name was on purpose, he saves, and now the fulfillment of that meaning was promised.
#3. The fulfillment of the meaning was promised.
A couple weeks ago, Pastor Kenny took us back to the Book of Genesis Chapter 3, to show us the very first promise that Jesus would come. And really from that point on, from Genesis 3:15, the whole rest of the Old Testament is that same promise repeated and developed, and in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah especially, we see that promise over and over again. One such place is Isaiah Chapter 7, verse 14, which goes:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and [they] shall call his name Immanuel.
And of course, if you look here at Matthew Chapter 1, verses 22–23, Matthew quotes that verse from Isaiah, and he says that Jesus being named “Jesus” — because he will save his people from their sins — Jesus being named “Jesus” is actually part of the fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied. Verse 22: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet…”
Mary is the virgin Mary, like Isaiah said; and
she did conceive and bear a son, also like Isaiah said;
— but look, they named him Jesus whereas Isaiah said they’d name him Immanuel. You ever wondered about that?
How can Matthew say that the son being named “Jesus” is the fulfillment of Isaiah saying that the son will be named “Immanuel”?
Jesus/Immanuel
Well, I think the clue is in the little parentheses at the end of verse 23. Notice that after Matthew says “Immanuel” he explains what that name means. He says:
… Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
So let’s step back for a minute and see what’s going on here:
there are two names for Jesus in the passage: Jesus in verse 21 and Immanuel in verse 23. And both names, when they’re mentioned, are followed by an explanation.
In verse 21, it’s “Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
In verse 23, it’s “Immanuel, which means God with us.”
Well, here’s the thing:
implicit in the name “Jesus” (Yahweh saves) is that Jesus is God saving his people. Matthew says that.
And implicit in the name “Immanuel” (God with us) is that Jesus is God is with us to save us.
See, the presence of God is always his saving presence. We just saw this in the Book of Exodus.
Remember in Exodus 33 when Moses begs God for his continued presence. Moses says to God, If your presence doesn’t come with us, I don’t want to go! (Exodus 33:15) And the reason Moses wanted God’s presence was not for the company; but it’s because he knew what God could do!
He saw the plagues in Egypt!
He saw the Red Sea split in two!
He saw the bread from heaven!
He saw the water from the rock!
Moses knew that God could make a way when there was no way. Moses knew that Yahweh saves. That’s why he wanted his presence. For God to be with us, means he is with us to save us.
And so implicit in the name Jesus is that he is God; implicit in the name Immanuel is that he is our Savior.
So I think Matthew here, in his Gospel, understands that the name “Jesus” and the name “Immanuel” are saying the same thing!
As was promised, Jesus is God come to save us AS God with us … like us … fully human … with hair and skin and eyes and teeth, and with a first name just like you’ve got a first name. His name is Jesus.
He Knows Our Need
And when I was in fourth grade, I had a classmate who went by that same name, and it baffled me back then. But what’s truly baffling, is not that a normal kid could call himself Jesus, but it’s that Jesus could become like a normal kid.
Just a normal kid like the rest of us … but who grew in wisdom and stature, and who in every respect was tempted as we are, yet without sin (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 4:15). Look, wherever you are in your life, in some way, Jesus gets it.
My favorite Christmas song is “O Holy Night,” and it’s my favorite because of two sentences, and in a lot of renditions they get cut, but this is how it goes:
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger [Do you see that image? The King of kings laying in a dirty manger] … in all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need; our weakness is no stranger.
The needs and weaknesses of your life, the things you most dislike about yourself, are things that Jesus knows completely, and he loves you.
The Bible tells us in Romans Chapter 5 that God demonstrates his love for us in that Jesus died on the cross in our place. At the cross when Jesus took upon himself our sin and guilt and shame and the wrath we deserved, Jesus did that to save us … because, he is Jesus, Our Savior — that’s what his name means, and this morning you can ask him to save you.
Maybe you’ve heard about Jesus plenty of times, but you’ve never trusted him as the Savior he is. This morning I’m inviting you to do that. Put your faith in Jesus to be your Savior.
And for all who do, let’s come now to this Table and give him thanks.
The Table
At this Table, the bread and cup represent the body and blood of Jesus. And when we take and eat the bread, and drink the cup, we remember that we are united to Jesus by faith, that Jesus is our Savior, and one day we will have this meal with him face to face.
So this morning, if Jesus has saved you, receive him now with thanks.
His body is the true bread.
His blood is the true drink.
Let us serve you.
† Fred Buechner, Secrets in the Dark, 28.
