What’s in a Name? Part 2
So, Not Howard. Elohim (Hebrew) = Theos (Greek) = God (English) Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (Hebrew) = I Am Who I Am Ehyeh, meaning "I am" represented by the derivation YHWH YHWH, given vowels = YaHWeH = Yahweh (pronounced YaaWay) The name of God is Yahweh, I am who I am. Davar (Hebrew) = Logos (Greek) = Word (English) Word = The revelation, mediating principle, the perfect revelation of God’s self in the flesh = Jesus The Word is Jesus, Jesus is the Word. When I proposed last week that I would walk us through “Emmanuel, El-Shaddai, Adonai, Abba and a few others,” perhaps I jumped the gun. Before we open ourselves to the intimacy and understanding of these titles, we need to have a good understanding of the relationship between the Word and Yahweh and also Jesus and the Father. We now are secure in the knowledge that God’s name is I am who I am or Yahweh. The name of God is the name of the whole of God, not a part of God. Yahweh does not mean Word, but we know that Jesus–the Word is also Yahweh. Additionally, Jesus regularly refers to Yahweh as Abba, which is Aramaic for Father–his Father and our Father. Appearing to Mary at the tomb after the resurrection, Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17) How is Yahweh, God both Father and Son? The overwhelming testimony of Scripture, much of which comes directly from Jesus, tells us that the Son and the Father are both distinct members of the Godhead. Many times Jesus prayed to the Father and taught us to pray that way as well, Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy Name. Through his witness we know that Jesus the Son is not the Father, yet we also know that the Word is God. The revealed Trinitarian nature of God makes these truths understandable. The Word is the second person of the Trinity–of Yahweh. When the Word became flesh the Word was also the man Jesus. When the Word, co-equal with the other two persons of the Trinity, became flesh he also became the Son. The Word became the Son in the same way that I am a son, or you are a son or daughter. God did this for the same reason that God gave us his name, to call us into intimacy with a person. As person, Jesus (the Word) had a Father. As the Word lived life in the flesh, Jesus taught us about his Father as we would teach or tell of our own. While the Word was Yaweh he was also Jesus and in that relationship, human and fleshy, Yahweh was Father. The Word was able to live, not only as Yahweh, divine and transcendent, but as Jesus, human and finite. An imperfect and limited example might help you. In the show, “Undercover Boss,” the Boss (owner, president, etc.) of a company joins the workers of his company without them knowing. He/she does this to experience and understand the workings of the people in those positions and, eventually, to show that he/she cared enough to do this. While the Boss is participating as a worker, he/she does not stop being the Boss, they just stop acting as the Boss for a time. When the Boss goes back to being the Boss, they are now different than they were by the experience and relationships they had. The Word stopped acting as Yahweh (but was still Yahweh) and lived as one of us. When Jesus died, he rose as Jesus, but also as the Word, both human and divine. Now, this is where the example ends. God did not need to do this to know all of what we are and what we experience. God became flesh out of love for us to extend intimacy to us through his relationship in the flesh. The Word, then, is coequal with the other two persons of the Trinity, and also Jesus, the Son of the Father. The joy and value of understanding this relationship and the names and titles of God is found in the intimacy of the revelation. God told us his name, Yahweh, so that we would know God’s self not as an abstract thought or energy construct, but as a person. Only people have and give names, and although Yawheh is much more than a human person, God made it possible for us to know and recognize God as such. The generous gift of God’s name Yahweh foreshadowed the incarnation of God’s self. The Word, the Second Person of the Trinity Yahweh, who became flesh and dwelt among us: his name is Jesus. With a better understanding of the relationship of Father and Son, we return next week to more titles and names. In Jesus’ Name, Fr. Bill†
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What's in a name?
On the way home from church, a mom asks her first-grader, “How was Sunday school today?” Her first grader responded, “Great, we learned God’s name.” “They taught you God’s name? What is it?” Her son replied, “Howard.” “Really,” said mom, “How do you know that?” He answered, “Well we all said a prayer to him and it said……. Our father, who art in heaven, Howard be thy name.” God’s name. We have all been taught and learned on our own, much about God. Certainly by the time you are in grade school, if you were raised in an active Christian home, you would have learned the basics of our faith and the way to pray. Speaking the name of God, which is not Howard, and invoking the titles of Jesus, would have been among the first lessons. As you grew, it was most likely assumed that you not only knew the names and titles of God, but also what they mean. This is incredibly important because knowing these things dramatically informs prayer. Most often in the New Testament, the Greek descriptive title theos, meaning “God,” is used to refer to the Father. Theos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew elohim, which is a general term meaning "deity" or "gods." In both the New and Old testament the Hebrew and Greek words, commonly used otherwise, were appropriated by Hebrews and Christians and capitalized to address only the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. The actual name of God, found in the Book of Exodus, was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai: Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (3:13-15) Now, the journey to Yahweh, God’s name as we know it, is a bit complicated, but in a nutshell: "Yahweh" is considered to be the pronunciation of the Hebrew name "YHWH" (written with the letters Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh), which is derived from the Hebrew word "Ehyeh" (meaning "I am") found in Exodus 3:14, where God reveals himself to Moses as "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (meaning "I am who I am") - essentially, the name "Yahweh" is understood as a verbal form of "to be" based on the root of "Ehyeh". (Center for Hebraic Thought) Since it was determined that the name of God was too sacred to speak, Elohim (pronounced Eloheem) with a capitol “E” was most, but not exclusively, used. Elohim then, translated as Theos, was also used nine times in the New Testament to refer to Jesus. John’s Gospel begins with this very term: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (Theos), and the Word was God (Theos)." "In the beginning was the Word” Davar is Hebrew for word. Davar was used generically in the Old Testament as it referred to a statement or a thing, but it was also used specifically in relation to God. The Word (Davar) of God was often personified as an instrument for the execution of God’s will. Psalm 33:1 accounts, “By the word (Davar) of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their lights.” When Davar was used in this way, the Jewish people would understand that the action of God was synonymous with God’s self. Davar is translated as Logos in the Greek. In Greek philosophy, the term Logos was used to describe the intermediate agency by which God created material things and communicated with them. In the Greek world view, the Logos was thought of as a bridge between the transcendent God and the material universe. Greek’s would understand the term Logos as the mediating principle between God and the world. Through the revelation of the Word, John (and others) spoke of Jesus as the Davar, Logos, Word, by combining and superseding the religious and philosophical principles of both the Hebrew’s and the Greek’s. Jesus himself invited His followers to exercise their faith-filled imagination having been exposed to His divine transcendence. More than the personification of God’s revelation or the mediating principle, Jesus was the perfect revelation of God’s self in the flesh. He was both the Theos and the Logos, as he clarified for Phillip: “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, "Show us the Father"?'" (John 14:9) To deepen our prayer life and grow closer to God, next week we will define Emmanuel, El-Shaddai, Adonai, Abba and a few others. In Jesus’ Holy Name, Fr. Bill+ "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4
“Calm down!” Parents say it to their kids, peers say it to each other, police say it to perpetrators, and we say it to ourselves, “calm down.” In recent months, perhaps due to the rise in Artificial Intelligence, medical revelations have come at an exponential rate. For instance, recently the medical journal Neurology, published an article citing new discoveries regarding stomach acid. There have long been theories regarding the effects of stomach acid—or the lack thereof—on the stomach, but new research has connected acid to so much more. “The side effects of PPIs (protein pump inhibitors) have always been a big point of discussion,” says gastroenterologist Dr. Lucy Joo. “Everything from skin rashes, electrolyte disturbances, kidney injury, bone fractures and increased risk of C. diff—a very serious infection—have been associated with long-term PPI use.” This study specifically shows that, “Those who used PPIs for more than 4 years…were at 33% higher risk of developing dementia than those reporting no use.” There are a lot of medical reasons why PPIs or the like are necessary to control stomach acid, but there is also a source of stomach disturbance that medical intervention can’t really touch—and that is stress. A poll released from the American Psychological Association explains, “The U.S. population has experienced an intense range of stressors over the past few years, as the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, and political divisiveness have dominated news cycles and social media.” It continues by noting that Americans are “concerned for the future, beset by inflation, [displaying] a battered American psyche, [and] facing a barrage of external stressors that are mostly out of personal control. There are real world dangers to our lives lurking in our coping methods to stress. When we experience stress, our body is actually reacting to perceived danger. This danger can include a threat to physical safety, emotional well-being, relational belonging, financial security, or any other way we might feel unsafe. For many people, stress exists like a constant pulsation, a tension that may grow softer or stronger but is always there. This tension is telling our brains that we are not safe enough to relax and therefore keeps our minds and bodies in a state of fight or flight. In response, our adrenal glands release the hormone cortisol. Cortisol “alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes. This complex natural alarm system also communicates with the brain regions that control mood, motivation, and fear” (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2021). High levels of cortisol are detrimental to health and often have immediate and long-term consequences to well-being. Not only, then, is stress unpleasant to experience regularly, it also contributes to ongoing mental and physical health issues. A summary of the American Psychological Association poll found in Carson-Newman University “Communications” states that “46% of adults under the age of 35 surveyed said they are so stressed that they cannot function. The majority of those ages 18 to 34 indicated that most days, they are completely overwhelmed by stress….Ongoing stress can have a negative impact on health. Adults report headaches and fatigue as symptoms, and many report feeling depressed or anxious. Over time, long-term exposure to stress hormones can increase the risk of mental health concerns, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. I believe we all can identify with one or more of these responses to stress. So much of our emotional and mental energy is spent reacting to the pressures of living that it is easy to overlook the dangerous effect on our bodies. How do people of faith respond to the enormous stressors of our time? Don’t respond at all! Our greatest asset is our ability to act first. We are able to initiate within ourselves actions that will deal with any and all stressors before they come our way. While "stress" is not specifically mentioned in the Bible, Scripture does speak to things such as anxiety, worry, and trouble—things we often associate with stress—and gives us clear answers on how we should deal with them. Critiquing our way of reacting to stress, Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? … And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?" Matthew 6:25, 27. Jesus continually teaches that our position of strength to overcome stress is not a response at all, but an initial way of living. In the Gospel of John Jesus teaches us, "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." (14:1) Believing in God and cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus does not mean that we will have a trouble-free life. Jesus teaches that He is the Way of life and that true life (stress free life) is found only in him, life without Jesus Christ makes coping with stress an impossible and often debilitating task. We are all well aware of the pitfalls associated with depending on ourselves to over come the stressors of our lives. Turning to alcohol or drugs or mindless entertainment are common ways we “cope” with stress. St. James tells us to, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (1:2-4). The testing of our faith is not the occasional trial or problem “sent by God.” Think of it this way. If you were driving on a completely bald tire and you got a flat, would you think of the flat as a test of your common sense? No, the flat would have been expected. Common sense would have been employed before driving on that tire. The test of common sense took place before you even left. The faith God builds in is tested by our action toward stress, not in our response to it. In the Book of Proverbs 3:5-6 we are told, "trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." We are instructed to trust before we act, to trust as an act. I have often spoken about the joy we can find in God and the peace which is waiting for us. Paul proclaimed this to the Philippians and to us when he wrote, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in the knowledge and love of Christ Jesus." (4:6-7) God’s promises to us are true and real. Jesus made this known, even as he was bodily ascending to Heaven when He said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." John 14:27. The ultimate solution to stress is to surrender our lives to God and seek God’s wisdom. We need to seek Jesus' peace daily by filling our minds with His Word and lifting all things to Him in prayer. It is only by His grace, mercy, and love that, as the causes of stress come, we are able to meet them with peace. Peace and health be with you, Fr. Bill† Dear Creator Family,
I pray that as you said goodbye to 2024 and welcome in 2025, you were filled with a sense of God’s presence with you and that God’s joy filled your heart. The new year brings new peace, in the act of letting go of hard feelings and frustrations from the past year. The offer of 2025’s new beginnings is the opportunity to say “sorry” and extend forgiveness to others. 2025 is a reminder that God loves us and wants the best for us. This year is our year for God! "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Of course, we don't need a new year to recognize God’s love for us or Jesus’ sacrifice or the Holy Spirit’s indwelling power, we can become a new creation at any moment. 2025 is the clean slate that can help us over that last hump through which all things would be made new! As we embrace the New Year, we look ahead with hope and trust in God. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us, "for I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." No matter what your earthly goals are at the beginning of this new year —more physical strength, emotional health, or financial stability— Emmanuel is with us, helping you to achieve the goals to further God's plan for your life! G.K. Chesterton wrote, "The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul." How can we renew our souls for Christ other than by turning to God in all things, finding Christ with us and seeing the Holy Spirit everywhere. Candace Cameron Bure, actress and talk show host, has sought to live for God throughout her career. I find her perspective illuminating for the year ahead: “My faith is just my life, it’s a part of it. It naturally flows from me and I feel like I’ve navigated my entire career differently than most people have. The goal for me isn’t necessarily the next project or making more money or being a bigger star. I’ve always chosen the things that are true to me and that I’ve wanted to do.” The roles she has chosen and the personality she reflects on air incorporate her beliefs into everything she does, and it shows. Facing the aggressive competition of professional basketball, Magic Johnson credits God with his success and his outlook on life: "Through it all, I learned to trust in Jesus and I learned to trust in God!" Jonathan Edwards revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian, offers these two simple resolutions for the new year, Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will. I pray that you will find today the template of love in the presence of Christ and that each day will be just the same. Praying for you all for a Holy New Year! Fr. Bill+ |
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February 2025
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