星巴克

“…and they shall name him Emmanuel.”  Matthew 1:23

星巴克 It is a Chinese word pronounced  “Xingbake” (zin-bah-kuh), and there is a war going on in China over the name.

It’s a compound word in Chinese in that means “star” - “bucks.”  - Starbucks.

There is a Chinese businessman, Mao Yubo, who registered for the name in China before the well-known international Seattle-based company did.  He owns two stores that coincidentally sell, you guessed it, gourmet coffee!  Of course the Seattle-based company alleges that this is an infringement on its trademark name.  Who knows how it will all finally be resolved?

The point is, so what’s in a name?  If you’re in business, money – lots of it - maybe even millions or billions.

Naming rights have become the modern business battleground, with lawyers and marketers girding their loins for a fight over the economic value of what a company or product might be called.  The stakes are high, considering a name like “Nike” is thought to be worth about $7 billion and “Coca Cola” perhaps worth $50 billion.

It used to be that if you were dreaming up a name for a new company or product you could draw it up on the kitchen table and hang the shingle outside. For example, if you made machines that businesses could use all over the world you could easily call yourself “International Business Machines.”

If you’re a small congregation that doesn’t have a meeting space, but you found a local funeral home where you could meet on Sundays in the chapel, what would you call your church?  - The Church of the Resurrection, of course! That’s precisely what a Kansas City congregation did – a United Methodist Church that met in a funeral home named The Church of the Resurrection.

But it’s not always so simple. The Internet has expanded the global marketplace exponentially, and with so much stuff and so many people making it or selling it, the pool of available brand and domain names is apparently drying up. Apparently there aren’t enough original names to go around. 

In 1997 when I launched my own website I searched for a name that reflected the values and content I intended for my website.  It seemed that every time I considered a good name somebody already had the rights to it, until I finally landed on the idea of SpiritualTrails.  www.spiritualtrails.com (.net .org .info)

You’re skeptical perhaps? Ask any potential parent about baby names. They have probably looked through the naming books and will likely tell you some version of “all the good names are taken.” More and more we are seeing the appearance of hybrid spellings of traditional root names.   Naming — whether it is people or products — can be a serious, frustrating, and even costly business.

For marketing experts the goal is to come up with something original, something unique and identifiable, some name that provides the ultimate brand recognition, longevity and connection with the consumer — something that will leave its stamp on people forever.

In today’s passage from Isaiah, the prophet is directing King Ahaz to ask for a sign from God to strengthen his faith about what to do, as his kingdom was being threatened by foreign invaders.   However, Ahaz refuses to ask God what to do.   Isaiah tells Ahaz that God will provide a sign anyway (7:14), “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”

Biblical names are never accidents. You don’t see Abraham and Sarah, for example, sitting around looking at Canaanite baby name books before naming Isaac. Isaac means “laughter.” And since Isaac was born to 80 year old Sarah, it was a pretty good laugh.  Biblical names are descriptive of their holder. Jeremiah means “thunderous denunciation” and if you have even spent time studying the book of Jeremiah you would conclude it is an accurate description of an often angry man.  Even God’s name, YaHWeH, has a powerfully descriptive quality in its meaning — “I am who I am.”

In Isaiah’s time, God names the child who will represent his message of hope to Ahaz and his people at a dark time in their history. A child named “Immanuel,” that the context suggests may have even been Isaiah’s own son (8:3), is God’s logo of love - a sign that God will not leave Ahaz and the people to fend for themselves.

If there was ever a time when Ahaz needed a clear sign that God was with him, it was at that particular moment in Judah’s history. The country was in decline and besieged from without. They were threatened with invasion and political extinction.

Ahaz needed to know that God was with him, but, incredibly, he didn’t want to know! Ahaz was not unlike many of us who, in our hour of trial, rebel rather than repent; turn to our own devices rather than to God’s guidance; prefer to push ahead to our own destruction rather than kneel down for our own salvation.

Like with Ahaz, God has a sign for us, and the sign is a Son, and the name of the Son is “Immanuel.” It means, “God with us.”

We have two choices.  We can cherish the sign, embrace the name, know that whatever our sorrow, whatever our circumstance, whatever our dilemma, God is with us, or we can respond with the Ahaz answer: “I will not ask.  I will not turn to God.  I will do it my way.”

What was Ahaz thinking in not turning to God?  What are we thinking?

Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”   Why is it that we sometimes do not ask?  It is because we have too many doubts?  - too much guilt?  - too much pride?

Immanuel.  The name stuck and then centuries later Matthew breathed new life into it when he picked it up and assigned the name to Jesus.  Jesus, too, would be an “Immanuel,” but even more so - not simply a representative of God, but God incarnate to live among the people to save them from sin and despair.   Jesus would be “Immanuel” in the fullest sense of the name.

Jesus-Immanuel.  When you put the two together, Jesus-Immanuel, you get something very interesting.  Jesus, or Yeshua, a form of Joshua, was a very common name in first century Israel. It means “God Saves.”  The name Jesus, “God saves”,  standing alone is a fitting name for one who would come and “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

But still, in and around Bethlehem and the rest of first century Israel, Jesus was a very common name – an everyday name, a name easy to lose in a crowd. It was a common name that was shared by many, perhaps like Smith or Johnson or Anderson in our culture. 

But if you think about it, it is a remarkable name and a remarkable coupling of names.  It is precisely the commonality of the name “Jesus” that makes “Jesus, the Immanuel” so much easier for all of us to embrace. In his commonality, “God with us” became, in very literal terms, “one of us” — a common person, but with an uncommon mission. It was the cross and resurrection that forever stamped that common name with eternal significance, making Jesus the ultimate name — the name at which, as Paul says in Philippians, “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10—11). Talk about a “domain name”!

Biblically speaking there are no shortage of names to describe the Messiah: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Root from the stump of Jesse, Lamb of God, Lion of Judah, Light of the World, Bread of Life, and many more.  Each name is packed with descriptive and metaphorical meaning of who the messiah is to be.

Xingbake. (zin-bah-kuh)  Starbucks.  They want to sell you coffee.

Jesus-Immanuel.  God is not selling you anything, but desires to give you everything.

Pastor Kurt Pasko tells of an experience he had in a Christian counseling center in Dubuque, Iowa.  One year just before Christmas the waiting room of the center was full of tense, distraught men and women. Pain was written on their furrowed brows. Sadness was in their eyes. They were discouraged, depressed, defeated.   “’Holidays are hard,’ one client told a stranger sitting next to him.

Moments later, a young woman, struggling with postpartum blues, entered the waiting room for her appointment carrying her newborn baby. The baby gurgled and cooed as he snuggled in his blanket.

When therapists and clients emerged from behind the closed doors they saw the baby. Their eyes lit up. Smiles crossed their faces. They approached the young mother and her child with a lightness of step and faces that revealed the awe which the baby inspired. They marveled at the tiny hands and feet and took turns holding the bundle of joy. In a matter of moments the whole atmosphere of the waiting room changed from gloom to joy, from despair to hope, from tears to laughter.

No longer were they clients and therapists. They had become a community, a community of love inspired by the simple presence of a child.

In a few days we will find ourselves looking into the manger once again, and who do we find but “Jesus-Emmanuel.”  Consider this!  He is God’s gift to you!  He is God’s assurance that you have not been left alone to fend for yourself.  He is God’s gift of love who forgives your sins, reconciles you to God, and binds you to other believers in a new kind of community called the church.

There is no despair so deep, no darkness so dark, no forsaken place so desolate that he has not already attended.

Don’t be like Ahaz who was too proud, or too self-reliant or too something to acknowledge God’s assurance that was right before his very eyes.  Rather, take this child Jesus-Emmanuel into your arms; into your heart; into your life.

It’s all there in the name, Jesus-Emmanuel -  God with us - God with us, then, now, and always.

Amen.