What’s in a name? One of the delights of having lived among Pacific Island peoples is to have understood how important are the names given at birth. One encounter was with a young Tongan man whose name was Lonisestoni Vaitohi. ‘The name, Lonisestoni, is the Tongan way of saying Launceston, a town in Tasmania. When I was born, my grandmother was living in Launceston, and she gave that name to me. The name Vaitohi, means writing ink; I was given that name to recall the arrival of the first missionaries, who introduced reading and writing to our people. So, my name in English is Launceston Ink’.
The Bible reading for this Sunday, Genesis 18:9-15, tells the story of the promised birth of a son to Abraham and Sarah. Given that both parents were already well over the age of 80, Sarah, who overheard the promise spoken to her husband, bursts out laughing in disbelief. Subsequently when the child is born, he is called ‘Isaac’, the Hebrew word for ‘She laughs.’
Looking ahead to a comparable announcement recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the (again unsuspecting!) mother, Mary, is informed that her child is to be given the name, ‘Jesus’ because ‘he will save his people from their sins’.
Before we jump to conclusions, let us remember that, for the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is depicted as ‘the new Moses’, and within this framework, ‘sin’ is not ‘the bad things we do’, nor should we lament what bad people we are; rather it speaks of liberation from anything that holds us captive – any obstacle to the fullness of life that God passionately wills for us.
Randall Prior