Pastor Hugh's Monthly Meditation
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THE POWER OF JESUS’ NAME
All hail the pow'r of Jesus' name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
bring forth the royal diadem
and crown him Lord of all.
“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” ELW hymn #634, verse 1
Click on image to see a larger view of St. Paul’s “Name of Jesus” Window, in a separate window.
In ancient days a name had power beyond its ability to label a person or thing. When, in Genesis, Adam is given the task of naming the wild beasts, it’s in part to demonstrate the power and authority that humans were given by God over the natural world (as well as the responsibility that this authority assumed.) When God revealed his name as “Yahweh” to Moses, he gave us a window into his being and character, for the name “Yahweh” can translated as “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” In other words, God is beyond our manipulation or definition—beyond our power to control. Eventually it became presumptuous and even blasphemous even to utter the name of God.
With the name of Jesus, we encounter not only a name that is deeply familiar to the ears of those who speak English, especially to those of Christian faith, but we are given insight into the personality and person of our Lord. The name “Jesus” is the English version of the Greek name, Ιησους (Iesous). And this is a hellenized form of the Aramaic name, ישׁןצ (Yeshua). The Hebrew or Aramaic name Yeshua (from which we also get the name, Joshua) means, Yahweh saves.
The stained glass window that is featured this month is the one bearing the Christogram, “IHS.” It can be found in the Narthex to the right of the main entrance doors as you face Wolcott Hill Road. Like the “Chi-Rho” featured last month, the letters IHS are the first three letters of the Greek name for Jesus. If you capitalize the Greek letters Ιησους, you get IHSOUS.. When these letters were transliterated into the Latin alphabet they became the IHS—the “S” having the same consonant sound as the Greek sigma (S). (Sometimes you can find this Christogram as “IHC”, with the Latin “C” used because it is the closest Latin letter that resembles the crescent-shaped Greek sigma.)
Some will suggest that IHS is an acronym for the Latin phrase, Iesus Hominum Salvator ("Jesus, Savior of men"). Others give it other meanings, “I Have Suffered,” or “In His Service.” These are likely later interpretations that don’t reflect the original meaning.
The name of Jesus is powerful. As Paul writes in Philippians (2:10), “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” As people of faith, who have come to know the name of Jesu not only as the historic name of a man who lived 2000 years ago but more importantly as the name of our Lord and Savior, we have come to experience the promise that, in his name, God does save. That through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, “God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (II Cor. 5:19)
While the name of Jesus is increasingly growing unfamiliar to those who have never heard of or experienced God’s love in Christ, it remains as a comfort to those who are alone or alienated in this world. The name of Jesus is tender to the ears of children of all ages and backgrounds who learn that “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
IHS, three simple, if not obscure letters. Yet in something so simple is the promise of a reality with great power: to heal, to comfort, to make whole.
Hugh R. B. Haffenreffer
Pastor
April 2008
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