The 4th Sunday of Advent:
Scriptures: Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
Key Verse: “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
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Hello, This is Jade.
Welcome to Yi.kigai
A space for all to explore the intersection between faith and daily life
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Before college, I didn’t have an English name. I was assigned one in college but didn’t get attached to that name. “What’s your English name?” That was the first question the class leader asked me on the first day of class. I told her that I didn’t have one. Then she asked if it was all right for her to pick one for me. I told her, “Sure!” Since I was a transfer student, I didn’t and couldn’t socialize much. During the first week, I was pretty quiet and spent most of my breaks contemplating a lot of random stuff and walking around campus. At the end of the first week, the class leader came to me and said, “We will call you ‘Grace’ because it fits your personality well based on my observations.” From that day on, I was known as ‘Grace.’
Somehow, I never felt that name suited me well. It might have had to do with my rebellious teenage soul or my lack of understanding of the word ‘grace.’ After graduating from college, I stopped using the name ‘Grace’ and insisted on using my Chinese name. While working at an international trading company, I still didn’t feel like having an English name. Then after several years, I got another job teaching math and English at a bilingual kindergarten. I was asked again, “What’s your English name?” I finally decided to use ‘Jade’ as my English name for the sake of the students that I was teaching. Interestingly, I didn’t have a hard time getting used to this English name. Both of my names, despite sounding different, shared the same meaning. My Chinese name given by my parents literally means ‘thousand jades.’ For my parents, my life is like jade in our culture, very precious. Hearing my name called by others helps me remember to whom I belong to.
I am always mesmerized by learning about people’s given names. Names give us a sense of who we are. It reminds us of all sorts of connections that we have with our family ancestry, our ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and our faith practices. Throughout the Bible, we know numerous stories about God giving new names to those who were entrusted with God’s specific missions. From the very first day they used their new names and lived the new identities given by God, their lives were bound to God, God’s promises, and God’s people. The most famous one was the couple, Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 17 verse 5 and 15. Instead of being ‘Abram’, meaning ‘exalted father,’ God called him ‘Abraham,’ meaning ‘father of a multitude.’ Instead of being ‘Sarai’, meaning ‘my princess,’ God called her ‘Sarah’, meaning ‘mother of nations.’
For our last Advent week before Christmas, we are reminded of these two important names from Matthew 1:18-25, Jesus and Emmanuel. These two names convey the assurance of God’s promises to Joseph and Mary in the midst of the uncertainty that they were facing as a young couple and as the people of faith. As we know, the name Jesus is from Hebrew, meaning ‘the Lord is salvation.’ And the name ‘Emmanuel’ means ‘God is with us.’ By accepting and naming the baby Jesus, Joseph and Mary activated God’s salvation in their lives and lived each day by trusting that God is with them. The same assurance of God’s promises is also given to all who call upon the name Jesus. By accepting and calling Jesus as our savior, we also activate God’s salvation both in our personal life and our communal life together. Like Mary and Joseph, we live each day by trusting that the prophecy of ‘all shall name him Immanuel’ in Isaiah 7:14 has been fulfilled. Indeed, God is with us. For Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, he is with all believers to the end of the age.
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May your coming week be blessed by God’s grace
As together we explore the intersection between faith and daily life
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