CHRISTMAS

THE NAME "JESUS"

The name "Jesus" was a fairly common one among the Jews. In the original Hebrew, it was "Josue." About Mary the Angel told Joseph:

She will bear a son; and you shall give Him the name Jesus [Savior], for He will save His people from their sins. [Matthew 1:21]

This first indication of the nature of His mission on earth does not mention His teaching; for the teaching would be ineffective, unless there was first salvation.

He was given another name at the same time, the name "Emmanuel."

The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he shall be called Emmanuel, a name which means God is with us. [Matthew 1:23]

This name was taken from the prophecy of Isaiah and it assured something besides a Divine presence; together with the name "Jesus," it meant a Divine presence which delivers and saves. The Angel also told Mary:

You shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall give Him the name Jesus. He will be great; He will bear the title Son of the Most High; the Lord God will give Him the throne of His ancestor David, and He will be king over Israel for ever; His reign shall never end. [Luke 1:31-33]

The title "Son of the Most High" was the very one that was given to the Redeemer by the evil spirit which possessed the youth in the land of the Gerasenes, The fallen Angel thus confessed Him to be what the unfallen Angel said He was:

What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? [Mark 5:7]

The salvation that is promised by the name "Jesus" is not a social salvation, but rather a spiritual one. He would not save people necessarily from their poverty, but he would save them from their sins, To destroy sin is to uproot the first causes of poverty. The name "Jesus" brought back the memory of their great leader, who had brought them out of Egypt to rest in the promised land. The fact that He was prefigured by Josue indicates that He had the soldierly qualities necessary for the final victory over evil, which would come from the glad acceptance of suffering, unwavering courage, resoluteness of will and unshakable devotion to the Father's mandate. The people enslaved under the Roman yoke were seeking deliverance; hence they felt that any prophetic fulfillment of the ancient Josue would have something to do with politics. Later on, the people would ask Him when He was going to deliver them from the power of Caesar. But here, at the very beginning of His life, the Divine Soldier affirmed through an angel that he had come to conquer a greater enemy than Caesar. They must still render to Caesar the things that were Caesar's; His Mission was to deliver them from a far greater bondage, namely, that of sin. All through His life people would continue to materialize the concept of salvation, thinking that deliverance was to be interpreted only in terms of the political. The name "Jesus" or Savior was not given to Him after He had wrought salvation, but at the very moment He was conceived in the womb of His mother. The foundation of His salvation was from eternity and not from time.

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"FIRSTBORN"

She gave birth to a son, her first-born. [Luke 2:7]

The term "first-born" did not mean that Our Lady was to bear other children according to the flesh. There was always a position of honor assigned in law to the firstborn, even if there were not any other children. It could very well be that Luke employs the term here in view of the account which he later on is to give of the Blessed Mother presenting her Child in the temple ''as the firstborn Son." The other brethren of Our Lord mentioned by Luke were not sons of Mary; they were most likely His cousins. Mary had no other children in the flesh. But "firstborn" could mean Our Lady's relation to other children she would have according to the Spirit. In this sense, her Divine Son called John her "son" at the foot of the Cross. Spiritually, John was her "second son." St. Paul later on used the term "first-born" in time to parallel Our Lord's Eternal Generation as the Only Begotten of the Father. It was only to His Divine Son that God said:

Thou art My Son; today I have begotten Thee, or again, I will be Father to Him, and He shall be My Son. Again, when He presents the first-born to the world, He says, Let all the Angels of God pay Him homage. [Hebrews 1:5-6]

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