What's in a Name?

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 7:10-16 and Matthew 1:18-11.

Sometimes an author inserts himself into his story as a character. In his Divine Comedy Dante is the person taken on a tour of hell, purgatory and heaven. In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer is one of the pilgrims and the only one who gets to tell 2 stories. If you look at a picture of a young Ian Fleming and compare it to the description of James Bond in the books, you will see that the spy is an idealized version of the author. J.R.R. Tolkien set it in stone. He identifies himself as his character Beren from The Simarillion and his wife as the love interest Luthien on their tombstones!

Auteurs enter their films too. In every Woody Allen film he is essentially playing himself and when he is not, another actor, like John Cussack in Bullets Over Broadway, is doing a version of the writer/director. Johnny Depp has admitted that in every Tim Burton film he is essentially playing Tim Burton. The most astounding example of this is hidden in plain sight. In one Star Wars film Mark Hamill was asked by director George Lucas to say a line in a certain way. It wasn't natural for Hamill to say it that way but he realized it was the way George spoke. And then it hit him: his character, Luke Skywalker, or for short, Luke S, was a stand-in for the saga's creator Lucas!

And often the name of a character gives away the fact that he or she is an Author Avatar. (And thanks to tvtropes.com for the term and most of this info!) Philip Jose Farmer often included a version of himself in his science fiction series, denoted by the character sharing his initials. In the TV series Bones, the character Temperance Brennen is a crime solving forensic anthropologist who writes mystery novels about a crime solving forensic anthropologist named Kathy Reichs. In reality it's the other way around. Simplifying things, in the Chronicles of Amber Roger Zelazny actually named his avatar, a castle guard who is also an amateur author, Roger.

Sometimes authors do this out of ego. In fan fiction, such a character is called a Mary Sue. Originally this referred to female fans of Star Trek who wrote stories and created new characters on the starship Enterprise's crew who were just idealized versions of the writer and who became the most important character in the story, often being the love interest of Kirk or Spock as well as being better at everyone's job and ultimately saving the day. The male equivalent is called a Marty Stu. Weirdly the most famous Mary Sue was Wesley Crusher, the annoyingly precocious teenager in Star Trek: the Next Generation who often saved the ship. Wesley just happens to be the middle name of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Fans call such a character a Canon Sue, because, like it or not, the character is officially part of the series.

Occasionally writers do this for grins, even allowing the other characters to confront and bad mouth them for the lousy way the author treats them. Sometimes, however, the main character is a version of the author because the book is a fictionalized memoir or because it is partly based on an incident in their life. In the Narnia Chronicles Professor Digory Kirke has an earthly life very similar in key points to that of author C.S. Lewis, like having a dying mother.

But sometimes the Author Avatar is there to give voice to the author's point of view. Dr. Seuss did this in several of his books. The Lorax was inspired by the author's horror that some unusual trees he saw and liked in Africa were being cut down. In Horton Hears a Who! the author was expressing his regret for how he demonized the Japanese during the Second World War. And the Grinch was Seuss as well, inspired by how he sat up in his studio on a hill, looking down on his neighbor's gaudy Christmas decorations. On a more serious note the character of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park voices author Michael Crichton's critique of scientific hubris. And considering how the science fictional ideas of my youth are becoming realities now, perhaps we should listen. As Malcolm says, sometimes we get so enamored with figuring out how to do something we forget to ask whether we should do it at all.

The impulse on the part of authors to insert themselves into their stories can be explained by a concept introduced by J.R.R. Tolkien. Our penchant for creating stories and the worlds in which they are set is a reflection of the fact that we are made in the image of God. As he is the Creator, we in imitation become sub-creators, Tolkien said. And God inserted himself into his creation, long before people thought of this.

That's what we see in today's gospel. God is entering his story. But unlike the Greek deus ex machina, the sudden appearance without warning of a god to neatly clear up story problems, what Yahweh does has long been foreshadowed. Our reading from Isaiah is just one of the passages speaking of a miraculous child and a promised savior. And in today's passage from Matthew it is telegraphed in the names.

Our passage begins by talking about the origin story, so to speak, of “the Messiah.” This Hebrew title, like its Greek equivalent Christos or Christ, simply means the Anointed One. The Israelites anointed their prophets, their priests and their kings with oil to symbolize the anointing of the Spirit of God to equip, empower and guide them. But the prophets foresaw not just another in a long line of oil-soaked religious and royal figures. One day God would send THE Messiah, the definitive one who would save God's people. And while folks argued over which of those offices the Messiah would fill, the odds-on favorite was king. So it is significant that God selects as his father/protector Joseph, a son of David, a descendant of the archetypal King of Israel.

The angel tells Joseph that the child is to be named Jesus. This is the Greek version of Yeshua or Joshua, a shortened version of Yehoshua. It can be translated “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is savior” or “Yahweh is salvation.” The basic idea is that God saves people. So God is clearly stating Jesus' role. He is God's agent in saving the people.

The question is “saving them from what?” And we have talked about this recently, how the people wanted to be saved from the Roman empire and that's why they wanted a Jewish king to set up a Jewish kingdom of God. Humans prefer concrete things over things that are spiritual. We look to things like governments, money, and possessions to give us peace and happiness. But it is not in their power to do such things. Good government can ensure a certain level of justice and peace but can do nothing for inner peace. When you lack the basics money can make your life better. But once your physical needs are met, more money doesn't make you significantly happier. Ditto with possessions. Some people are addicted to shopping, trying in vain to fill their spiritual emptiness with physical items.

Jesus voices our Creator's point of view: “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15) “The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22) We cannot find salvation in government, money or possessions.

And it's not because these things are bad in and of themselves. They are just the wrong tools to fix our most fundamental problems. You wouldn't use a hammer to repair a headlight nor a plumber's wrench to reprogram your computer. As Jesus said, our problems come from within (Mark 7:21-22) and we need to let our Creator inside us to fix our sinful short-term thinking, self-centered hearts, and self-destructive behaviors.

Through Jesus, the Author tells us we have been learning the wrong lessons from his story. We have divorced our love of God from our love of those created by God in his image. A whole chapter of Matthew is devoted to Jesus listing the ways the religious leaders, under the pretense of serving God, do disservices to people. (Matthew 23) That's why when asked for the greatest commandment, he gives two. To do otherwise would be like honoring the Ten Commandments but forgetting the second of the two tablets. It's easy to do certain religious rituals and feel you've done your duty to God; it's much more difficult to act towards other people with love and compassion and forgiveness. But as Jesus says, quoting Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9:13; Hosea 6:6)

So as the Author's voice, Jesus tells us the proper way to interpret what God is doing and what he expects us to do. But he doesn't merely tell us, as does the Clive Cussler avatar in his Dirk Pitt novels; Jesus shows us. There have been lots of prophets telling people what God is like; Jesus is going to show us what God is like.

And that's what the last name or title in our gospel highlights. In the first of many quotes from the Old Testament that Matthew puts in his gospel, he takes a verse from our reading in Isaiah. In it God gives a sign that King Ahaz need not fear war but will have peace. A child will be born, possibly Isaiah's, and he will be called Immanuel. Before he knows right from wrong, the threat will be over. Matthew applies that name, given symbolically to that child, to Jesus, for whom it is even more appropriate. “Immanuel” means “God with us.” And that is who Jesus is. He is God with us. But in what sense?

Jesus is God with us as in “he is on our side.” A lot of people think that God doesn't care about us that much or that he is always angry with us. But as it says in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God sent Jesus on a mission to save us. He is on our side, working for our good.

Jesus is God with us as in being our companion. He accompanies us on every step of our journey through life. In the manger, he is with us in our vulnerability as an infant. On the flight to Egypt, he is with us as a child seeking refuge from persecution. In his job he is with us as we work. On the river Jordan approaching John the Baptist he is with us as we face God's plan for our lives. In the wilderness he is with us as we wrestle with who we are and how we will then live that out. With the twelve he is with us as we live in community with friends. In the controversies with his critics he is with us as we try to make our insights heard and understood. At the grave of Lazarus he is with us as we mourn. At Gethsemane he is with us when we suffer fear and anxiety. Before his judges he is with us as we face false accusations. At the whipping post he is with us as we suffer pain. Before the soldiers he is with us as we endure mockery. On the way to Golgotha he is with us as we undergo shame and humiliation. On the cross he is with us as we face death. God is with us in all of those circumstances, through Jesus.

Through Jesus, God experiences our problems and our pain. Through Jesus, God understands our plight, not theoretically but first-hand. Through Jesus, we know God is with us whatever befalls us and wherever we are. And we know that in whichever situation we find ourselves God will save us, as Jesus' name says. Jesus is not only God with us as a shoulder to cry on but God with us as an arm strong to save and to pull us up from the pit. Jesus is God with us, leading us through hazards and obstacles, past snares and stumbling blocks. Jesus is God with us, helping to support us when our cross gets too heavy to bear alone.

Jesus is God walking, not a mile in our shoes, but the whole journey from birth to death. And beyond. On the night before he died, Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you....If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:15-17, 23) If Jesus is God with us, the Holy Spirit is God within us.

In Jesus God comes to us and is with us in our earthly lives. Through the Spirit, we can come with God into new life, life with him. The Spirit gives life and he gives us the life Jesus has in him, eternal life. We can be with Jesus, enclosed in the eternal love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit forever.

We have all this straight from the mouth of  the Author of our salvation, the Author of this story in which we have found ourselves. Yet we have the freedom to choose whether to listen to and go along with what he says or not. When Dorothy L. Sayers created a love interest for her detective Lord Peter Wimsey, she put a lot of herself in that character, Harriet Vane. In the story where she was introduced, Lord Peter clears her of murder and she was supposed to fall in love with him. But Sayers found that it would be unnatural for the character she created, a strong intelligent woman based on herself, to simply be the damsel in distress who falls into the arms of her rescuer and marries him out of gratitude. So Lord Peter's pursuit of her and their courtship played out over the course of 3 novels. Eventually they did marry and lived happily ever after.

We are not the Author's puppets. But having heard his voice and seen him at work in this world and experienced the depth of his love, we have a choice. We can resist him. We can go against the flow of the story. There is no happy ending there. Or we can follow him, Jesus, the Messiah, the true King and God with us, and live with him happily ever after.