 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.
 
"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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