Be Still And Know

Luke 2:21 'Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived.' My wife Sue and I have three children and I well recall the long conversations about names which took place before they were born. We talked about names that had been important in the family, biblical names and others that we simply liked. The naming of Jesus was a very different matter. This was the name that Gabriel gave to Mary when she had first been informed of her miraculous pregnancy. Jesus was actually a very popular boy’s name at the time and was a shortened form of Joshua which means “the Lord saves”. Because most people only had one name, they were often also known by the place from which they came or the name of their father. So Jesus was variously known as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus, the son of Joseph. There may have been many children in Nazareth with the name Jesus, but only one who had come to bring salvation. In Jesus the name was completely fulfil