He Shall Be Called Jesus
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Devotion
Yesterday we looked at the plot of the birth of Jesus, the events leading up to the birth of Jesus were rather exciting. Joseph nearly divorced Mary, but the angel prophesied to Joseph about who Mary’s child was, and told Joseph what he needed to do. And we saw God’s hand in all of this, as everything went according to His plan and the King was born.
Now I’d like to focus on some of the smaller details in the passage – I say smaller, but actually you could probably fill an ocean with the amount of information these “small details” contain! But I have a few hundred words, so what I write will not do the subject justice.
Why Jesus? Why would the most important person who has ever lived, be called Jesus?
Names are very important in the Bible. They are closely linked to a person’s identity. What do I mean by that? Well, an example of this could be when God changed Abram’s name to Abraham; Abram means, ‘Father exalted’ but Abraham means, ‘Father of a multitude’, and that is who Abraham was, he was the father of many nations (Gen. 17:5). Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, which means ‘wrestles with God’ (Gen. 32:28), which is what he did. So, these names were very closely tied to who they were.
But why Jesus? Well Jesus comes from the name Yeshua (Joshua), which means ‘God saves’. Look at Matthew 1:21 again, do you see how important this verse is? Jesus is the long-awaited Saviour of the world. He was sent from heaven on a mission, and His mission was to save His people from their sins. The Jews were expecting a strong, mighty leader to arise, who would deliver them from the rule of Rome. But that wasn’t God’s plan, while the Jews at that time were ready to settle for a holiday at the beach away from Rome, God was ready to give them a kingdom with thousands of beaches forever! And the Ruler of this Kingdom is Jesus.
You see, there is something worse than being a slave to Rome. Being a slave to sin is infinitely worse, and we are all slaves to this ruler. When we do sin’s terrible will, we do that which is evil, that which is opposed to God’s good will, and this leaves us damned because God is good, and He must punish evil for He is a just God. So, Jesus came to rescue us from sin’s rule, because we are damned to hell because of it.
But just like He led the Jews out of Egypt’s captivity to the promised land, so is He leading His people, out of sin’s captivity into His Kingdom. Jesus our King is our rescuer, and we must trust Him, for He is merciful yet powerful, and therefore when we trust Him, in His mercy He accepts us, and in His power He delivers us.
Being under His rule is wonderful; He never lies to us, whereas sin seeks to deceive us wherever it can. King Jesus’ Kingdom is full of love, joy and peace, whereas sin’s rule brings about hatred, and sorrow, and anxiety. King Jesus wants to comfort us in suffering, whereas sin leaves us out in the cold, angry and broken. We have a Saviour who is so enjoyable, so worthy of our praise, so beautiful that our eyes would be blinded by His glory.
For those who haven’t yet put their trust in Jesus as their Saviour, and as their King, “taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8). And for those of us who have; this Christmas, let us join together to worship our Saviour, King Jesus, singing “O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord”.
