WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Judges 13:1-14:20; John 1:29-51; Psalm 102:1-28; Proverbs 14:15-16

“’Why do you ask my name?’ the angel of the Lord replied. ‘It is too wonderful for you to understand.’”

“As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, ‘Look! There is the Lamb of God!’”

“But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever. Your fame will endure to every generation.”

Since time immemorial, control of a name has implied control of the thing or being. Perhaps that explains God’s name: “YHWH.” Inherently unpronounceable, God’s name defies explanation, just as He defies our control. Yet many of us spend more of our “religious” time trying to dictate to God how He should behave than we spend allowing Him into our lives. We need to reconcile ourselves to the idea that the Spirit cannot be controlled and that our attempts to govern Him actually are a form of rejection. In other words, we attempt to control what we cannot trust. If we trust someone, there is no need for control.

God recognizes our misguided desire to command Him. It’s called sin. That’s why He translated His Name, “I AM.” It may be too wonderful to understand fully, but at least, it tells us the One we worship is, quite literally, outside our jurisdiction. As the very essence of all being, the Source of all Life, God is just not subject to our control. He is only subject to our decision to accept or reject Him because He will not hold our souls captive. Instead, God offers Himself for us, so we know we can safely offer our lives back to Him and trust Him to do His best with and through us.

Another of His Names helps us understand this: Lamb of God. The ultimate, once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ gave us another shot at Life as God always intended, in actual fellowship with Him. In this Name is abundant life. In this Name is found shared, eternal life. We do well, we do our very best, when we just give our lives back to the Lamb for reconciliation, purification and recreating. 

Putting all this together, without God as He is, in all His marvelous iterations, life as it was intended by its Source just does not happen. We have no business speaking His true name because we have no business trying to control or limit Him or the Life that comes from Him. Any real limitation of God necessarily would limit life itself. Thus, our efforts to box God into any image will necessarily limit our ability to fully experience Him.

God comes to us in three forms: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each speaks to us in different ways at different times. But the ultimate take-away from the Trinity is that there are no lengths to which God will not go to reach us. And there is no reason to attempt to limit our experience of God for the same reason. He loves us. We can trust Him. There is no need to control Him. And any effort to do so is destined to be self-defeating. This year, let’s resolve to let God be God in all His iterations. We might just end up with a better appreciation of exactly what is in His many Names.