A Name

What’s in a name?  When I started cardiac rehab fifteen months ago, the staff called me Billy.  That’s because my real name is Billy Gerald Whitely Jr.  My dad was Billy Sr.  Most of you know me as Gerald because I go by my middle name.  We have a man at church with a similar story.  Thomas Eugene K. went into the army during the Korean War as Eugene, but the army called him by his first name, Tom.  His family in Illinois knows him by Eugene, but everyone else calls him Tom.  But there is one more name, the name that is above every other name.  Mary and Joseph named their little baby boy, Jesus, according to the instructions of the angel Gabriel (Matthew 1:21).  But Matthew recorded in Matthew 1:23, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”  Isaiah wrote this verse 700 years before Jesus was born: Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”  And as Matthew said in his gospel, Emmanuel means God with us.  What a wonderful concept … and a wonderful name!  Paul said in Philippians 2:10&11, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  Well said, Brother Paul, well said!