Our Identity - A short address prepared to A Late Evening Office St. Columba’s Parish Church Sunday 9th January 2011

I continue to be amazed with the ways in which businesses, banks and government have to find out if we are who we say we are. Passports, bio-metric data, pin numbers, micro chips, finger prints, reference numbers, passwords, usernames, numbers, survey forms, our credit history, plastic cards, key fobs ... and all the rest

We are increasingly told that we are to protect our identity from being stolen - we are to shred documents, not to share pin numbers and to protect our plastic card.

Just last week I went in to register to rent out a DVD - I had to go in with my Passport, utility bill and sign a form

Our identity is crucially important.

We are complicated beings - we may be brother or sister, husband or wife, friend to some, mother or father, granny or grandad, we may be in charge of some others, we may be under the charge of others at work, we may be owners of cars, we may be tenents, we may be customers of this or that store. Each person we meet on a daily basis may have different expectations of who we are and what we are about.

In our Gospel reading this evening we have skipped over 30 odd years from where we were last week - from the Christmas story to Jesus beginning his public ministry. We see in this reading how crucial Identity is.

God the Father, in Jesus’ baptism identifies who Jesus is and what he thinks of him

His identity was confirmed...God's son.

He was identified as the focus of God's love.

He was identified as being very pleasing to God.

Before Jesus does all the amazing things he did in his ministry the base, the foundation is founded upon his Baptism.

There are huge problems in our society today when people, young and old forget about their identity - or who try to make a new identity for themselves.

Core to all who have been baptised is that we have been given an Identity - we have been given a Christian Name, we have been identified as the focus of God’s love and we have been identified as being very pleasing to God - that is the very core of Christian teaching.

But we need to own that truth, we need to trust that truth and we need to put it into practice.

Who are you? You are a child of God, the focus of his love and with you God is well pleased.

Yes we do stupid things, Yes we let him down time after time but we also are a people who believe in forgiveness and Grace. Thanks be to God. Amen

Names ...

A sermon based upon the Gospel reading this morning Matthew 1: 18-25

May my words and our thoughts be always pleasing to thy sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen

Names, I wonder do you know what your name means, where did you get your name from?

I know my name is from both of my Grandads - Robert Joseph

Today we have baptised Alexandru Joseph

When we look back beyond where our names came from we can discover the meanings of our names. I know for instance

Robert means Bright Fame

Joseph means he will add

If we were to query others

John means YAHWEH is gracious

Helen means "torch"

Victor Roman name meaning "one who is victorious" in Latin.

Gerald means - From a Germanic name meaning "rule of the spear"

Elizabeth means - my God is abundance

Alan - “little rock" or "handsome”

We have all been given our name for some reason, whether it was because our parents liked it or perhaps because of family members who shared them.

Today we have in our reading the reason behind the naming of Jesus, before he was even born. The name which Jesus was given as we heard in our gospel is very important as it outlines who he was going to be and what he was going to do.

In the busy-ness of this season, it is good to take time out to reflect upon the names given to Jesus in this reading today. As it not just Joseph and mary getting together, with a baby naming book and picking something which sounds nice. This is God intervening and giving to them the name which he has chosen, from the beginning of time.

Joseph was instructed by the angel to give the baby the name Jesus - the reason being that whe will save his people from their sins

We also see later in the reading - he is to have the name ‘Emmanuel which means God is with us’.

In our service today a lot has been going on, we began with lighting the fourth candle on our advent wreath- The candle of Love reminding us of God’s love for each and every one of us,

We confessed our sins to God, we recalled thorugh our psalms, canticles and readings of God’s love and his plan of salvation for us, we stood together as Alexandru Joseph was baptised and welcomed him as a member with us of the body of Christ, we prayed to God our father

All of these things we do sometimes without thinking but these when we pause to think are huge things made possible only by God coming amongst us, and dwelling here.

If it wasn’t for the babe in a manger that first christmas... we would not be here this morning singing praise to God and celebrating the fact of Immanuel ... God with Us, nor would we have the hope of our sins wiped away for good and all.

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas once again very soon, let us remember the true message, a message not just for a day of the year, but a message which the world needs to hear day, after day, month after month and year after year.

As Christians let us reclaim christmas as a celebration, as a time when we celebrate God intervening in the affairs of the world he created.

When he came amongst us as immanuel - God with us.

And also when he came as Jesus - saving us from our sins.

On thursday at the Holy Communion Service for the Housebound Parishioners I shared a story of

the Wright brothers, in december 1903 when they were successful in getting their "flying machine" off the ground.

Thrilled, they telegraphed this message to their sister Katherine: "We have actually flown 120 feet. Will be home for Christmas." Katherine hurried to the editor of the local newspaper and showed him the message. He glanced at it and said, "How nice. The boys will be home for Christmas." He totally missed the big news--man had flown!

Let us not now, nor ever forget the big news ... that Christmas is about the Baby in a manger all those years ago and the impact that baby needs to have on our lives and in our world today.

We have promised today to support the parents and God parent of Alexandru Joseph and countless others who have been baptised in the past. Let us all take that responsibility seriously and tell the generations of

Jesus Christ Immanuel.