Friday, December 14, 2018
Isaiah 62:2 The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give you.
THE GIFT OF A NEW NAME
Christmas is one time of the year when many people get creative. Some people make new things. Others take old things and make them like new. One Christmas, when I was a small child, my dad brought home several extra-large cardboard boxes from work. He and my mother stayed up late Christmas Eve cutting and taping and painting the boxes into the most incredible cardboard castle that you’ve ever seen! It was one of the most memorable Christmas gifts that we ever received. My parents had taken something from the scrap heap to make something new.
As sinful people who do sinful things, we find ourselves on the top of the scrap heap of life. It’s where we belong -- at the dump waiting for the fires of hell to consume us. And yet, the message of the Bible is that God has been rescuing lost sinners like us from the road to hell for a long time. We can find stories all through the Bible about people he rescued from the scrap heap of life, putting them together with others, and transforming them into something useful. And he is still doing that in 2018.
How does he do it? By giving us his Son, Jesus. Through his work on the cross and by our Spirit-given faith in that redeeming work, Jesus took you from the scrap heap and made you new! He gives you a new name, because your old names don’t fit anymore. No longer are you an unbeliever. No longer are you a leftover. No longer are you a lost one, a forsaken one, a desolate one. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Isaiah 62 goes on to list our new names in verse 12: “And you shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the LORD; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.”
That first Christmas, God sent us the greatest gift for which we could ever hope. And The gift of Jesus brings even more gifts with him. Jesus came to earth to rescue us, to wrap us in His righteousness, and to present us, his beloved, as a gift to his Father. Glory to the newborn King!
