“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins…” -Matthew 1:18-21

A name is supposed to mean something, and in the ancient world it did. Your name would signify your nature and character. And for Jesus, this is absolutely true; he is God come to save us from our sins.

‘Jesus’ is the Hellenized version of Yeshu, which is a shortened form of Yeshua, which is a shortened version of Yehoshua – which we know as the name Joshua. Hebrew names often were simply shortened sentences, and so Joshua means ‘God helps’ or ‘God saves.’ It’s the kind of thing a Jewish mother might say in the pains of childbirth as her little one was about to be born. And that is the name given to Jesus because that is exactly what he came to do, to save.

We see here in the name of ‘Jesus’ that He is God, come in the flesh. For two centuries believers have embraced the mystery of the God-man, fully God and fully human. This is the mystery we accept by faith and cannot totally grasp.

Secondly, we see that Jesus came to save his ‘people’ – plural. Jesus is forming a people for his name, not just individuals. Gathering for worship, working together with purpose, loving and serving one another – this is all God’s idea and what Jesus came for. Ecclesiates 4:9-12 speaks of how we are better off together than alone, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

Thirdly, we see that Jesus came to save his people from ‘their’ sins. He doesn’t say from the sins of others or from the evil other. The history of Israel is one of oppression - first Egypt, then Babylon, and now Rome. And so the Jewish people were quick to want deliverance from the oppressors. But Jesus comes to save them from ‘their’ sins – a real disappointment to many; hardly a real ‘Messiah.’ But the Word of God in Matthew is brutal in directing us to ‘self-criticism.’ It is our sin that needs to be dealt with, that’s the core problem, and that is what Jesus wants to first deliver us from. The first step in Salvation is always one of humility and acknowledgement of our own sin. It is recognizing our alienation from God because of our sin. Having humbled ourselves, we are on the right path.

Why do we need saving from our own sin? First, there are the eternal consequences of judgment and death. (Romans 6:23 & Revelation 20:11-15) There will come a day when we will be judged. There is also the corruption of sin that we experience now being born fallen in a fallen world. Sin twists and perverts all the good gifts God has given us. God wants to restore us to our original condition and purpose. When we are saved, we are saved from Hell, and also from an empty life in the here and now. This is never finished in this life, but begins now and is completed in eternity. Jesus wants us to experience new life now.

In Luke 4:18-19 as Jesus begins his ministry he quotes from Isaiah, and defines the purpose of his coming as, “Good news to the poor…freedom for the prisoners…sight for the blind…to release the oppressed.” Jesus came to save us, and these things are what it means. We need this, and those around us desperately need it as well – we all need to be saved from our sin.

This Christmas season may we heed the exhortation of Hebrews 12:2-3 and “…fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” May it be about Jesus and not all the other nonsense which might occupy our thoughts and distract from Jesus: God saves.

Pastor Tim, December 16, 2007