I believe in you, Jesus, Son of God. Your mission is to save us. Even your name means “savior.” I put my trust in you. You are my Lord.
Each person’s name has special importance. Our names identify who we are. From the perspective of the Bible, however, a name is something even more. A name reveals the person who carries it, and announces his or her role or mission.
In a way, a person’s name “is” the person. It reveals to others the deepest self of the one who bears it. For example, Jesus is known to us by many names and titles. Each one of them tells us something about him and his mission.
Jesus’ name can tell us a lot about him. The name Jesus, which is Yeshua (ye-SHOO-ah) in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, or Yehoshua (ye-HO-shoo-ah) in Hebrew, means God saves. As the angel said to Joseph in a dream, “You are to name him ‘Jesus’ for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21).
The term Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, which means “anointed.” In the Bible, kings, priests, and prophets—that is, those who had a particularly important mission to the people—were anointed with a special oil. The anointing was a sign that the Holy Spirit had come upon the one who received it.
Jesus is the Savior sent by God the Father so that human beings could receive love! Here is what the Evangelist John wrote:
“God is love”
“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him [ . . . ] And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 Jn 4:9, 14–16).
Jesus is called Son of God fifty-two times in the Gospels. In the Old Testament this phrase indicated a very close relationship between the creature and his God, but in the New Testament the expression acquires an even deeper meaning: Jesus truly is the Son of God! Two episodes in the Gospels show this clearly. When Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved” (Mt 3:17). And, at the moment of his death on the cross, one of the Roman centurions exclaims, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mt 27:54).
Another name or “title” that Jesus often applied to himself is Son of Man. Here the word “man” is used broadly to mean “human being.”
The name seems rather curious. But Jesus uses this term to talk about his humanity in a more mysterious manner. In the Book of Daniel, we see the prophet using the term Son of Man as a title for the Messiah who was to come. In calling himself “Son of Man,” Jesus is saying that he is the one sent by God, the one his people have awaited for centuries.
A very special name we call Jesus is Emmanuel. This name appears only once in the Gospels. The angel of the Lord, addressing Joseph, calls the child about to be born of Mary Emmanuel, which means God-with-us.
Jesus—born in our midst, died and risen for us, who becomes one with us in the Eucharist—is truly “God-with-us!”
“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.’” (Mt 16:13–18).
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Try to respond to Jesus’ question: “You, who do you say that I am?” |
Jesus, to me you are
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Do I know Jesus? Do I take time to read the Gospels?
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Is there an event from Jesus’ life that has particularly touched you? Write about it briefly here, then talk about it with a friend. |
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