underwhelmed by Jesus

On Sunday evenings at our church we are exploring names of God. This Sunday I have the joy of preaching on the name ‘Jesus’. I was really looking forward to this and happily pulled loads of reference books off my shelves expecting to be overwhelmed by the amount of information about the name ‘Jesus’.

I was certainly surprised. But it was because there is almost nothing. Even in the ‘Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels’ there was nothing about the name ‘Jesus’! I had to rely on brief paragraphs in my commentaries on the passages in Matthew and Luke when angels announce to Mary and Joseph that they are to call their miracle baby ‘Jesus’. I was underwhelmed by the lack of information about the name of Jesus.

I have over 700 books on my shelves and yet there is almost nothing about the name of our Saviour (there’s a clue there to the meaning of his name)! We know so much else about him from the gospels but only a limited amount about his name. Is it because there is not much to say? Does this mean a two-minute sermon on Sunday evening?

But then the floodgates opened. Suddenly there were lots of ideas and thoughts about the meaning of the name Jesus and what it means for us today. You will have to check out our service this Sunday evening (or the church website for an MP3 of the sermon next week) if you want to know what came out of it.

In contemporary Britain the name ‘Jesus’ is even more common than it was in his day. It is on lots of people’s lips as an exclamation. How often is it on my lips for more positive reasons?
A burglar got into a house one night. Shining his torch on the floor in the dark, he heard a voice saying, “Jesus is watching you.” 

He looked around nervously, shook his head, and kept looking for valuables. He again heard, “Jesus is watching you.”

This time, he shone his light all over, and it rested on a parrot.

He asked, “Did you say that?”

The parrot admitted that it had. “I’m just trying to warn you, that’s all.”

The burglar said, “Warn me, huh? Who are you? What’s your name?”

“Moses.”

“Well, what kind of stupid religious nutcases would name a parrot ‘Moses’?”

The bird answered, “I don’t know; I guess the same sort of stupid religious nutcases who would name a Rottweiler ‘Jesus’.”