Wearing His Name

A lifetime of slavery had become a year of freedom, and what a great celebration it was. The Israelites stood in their encampment at the foot of the desert mountain where Moses had taken them. They'd been there about nine months, learning from God, looking to God. Moses had brought down so many instructions from the summit, including directions for a tent – the tent where God was ready to move in. And today, the first Passover beyond the house of slavery, was move-in day (Numbers 9). Clouds gathered overhead. Light and flame shone on the mountain. As the cloud settled on the tent, as the light and flame poured into its august midst, the brother of Moses stood up. When the tabernacle was filled, he turned to face the people – he and his sons and his grandson. Aaron was the high priest, and he was dressed now in the majestic clothes God had himself designed.

Aaron stepped forward, barefoot on holy sand. His robe – its hem dangling and jingling with golden bells and woven pomegranates displaying the fruitfulness of God's life – was as blue as the sky, representing the things of heaven. Over a checkered coat of fine linen, he wore an apron woven of colored threads, blue and purple and scarlet, like the sunset. Around his waist, an embroidered sash held everything in place, and above that, over his chest, was tied a breastplate of gold, in which were set twelve gems, each engraved with the name of one of Israel's tribes, that they might always be on his heart as he ministered in the cloud of God's presence for them. Likewise on his shoulders, for God to behold, were a pair of jet-black onyx stones, each engraved with names of six of the tribes, to remind the Lord of all his people. And from his grizzled beard up beyond his nose and eyes, there rested on his head a fine linen turban; and over his forehead, fastened to the turban by a sky-blue cord, a gold plate like a flower blossom, a holy crown, engraved with the words “Holy to the LORD.” And so there, on his head, the high priest of Israel wore the personal name of God, making visible the weight of his calling that was to be ever at the forefront of his mind. The high priest, dressed like the heavens made flesh, literally wore the name of the LORD lifted up above his eyes as he ministered to the people as the LORD's representative (Exodus 28, 39).

This day, he was flanked by his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, and his grandson Phinehas, all dressed in the simpler but sparkling white robes of the priesthood, like heavenly beings. Together, they lifted up their hands before their faces, and began to recite the words that God himself had prescribed, while, tribe by tribe, all Israel bowed in awe. The light of the tabernacle, reflecting off the golden name of God on Aaron's forehead, radiated light over the camp as he and his offspring recited the great blessing: “The LORD bless you and keep you! The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you! The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace!” (Numbers 6:24-26). With those words, Aaron and his sons, the high priest and the priests, blessed the people of Israel. But God had given them those words for a very special reason. “So shall they place my name,” the LORD said, “upon the people of Israel, and I shall bless them” (Numbers 6:27).

In that act of lifting up their hands and reciting those words, the priests stamped God's name onto the nation of Israel as a whole. It was as if it was engraved onto Israel's forehead as one body. And each one, whether from the largest tribe or the smallest, the ones camped closest to the tabernacle or furthest away, had the same name placed there. In this act, Israel became the bearers of God's name, his public reputation, in the sight of the surrounding nations of the world, making visible the weight of their collective calling that was to be ever at the forefront of their minds. The question was whether they'd bear the name of God for good or for ill, whether they'd wear it in unsightly and mockery-worthy ways or in beautiful and praiseworthy ways. Last Sunday, we looked at five ways we can, sadly, lift up God's name vainly on our lips. But today, we find that Israel could just as easily lift up God's name vainly not just on their lips but on their lives (Exodus 20:7).

And in fact, the prophet Ezekiel would recount Israel's history, down to his own day, as the story of God having a deep concern for the way Israel carried his name. God chose Israel in Egypt, dreamed of leading them to glory, and urged them not to defile themselves with the idols around them (Ezekiel 20:5-7). But even there, Israel already resisted; they didn't forsake idols even while still in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:8a). God could have poured out his wrath (Ezekiel 20:8b), but, he says, “I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived” (Ezekiel 20:9). And so God led them out of Egypt anyway, into freedom in the wide open wilds.

Beginning the cycle over, he led them to Sinai and gave them his Law (Ezekiel 20:10-12). And yet Israel again rebelled, deliberately breaking God's rules and statutes (Ezekiel 20:13a). Yet again, God could have poured out his wrath (Ezekiel 20:13b), but also again, God says, “I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out” (Ezekiel 20:14). He delayed them from the promised land, but spared them (Ezekiel 20:15-16).

Beginning a third cycle, God warned the next generation to do better (Ezekiel 20:17-20). And what did they do? They too rebelled against God, deliberately breaking all those same rules and statutes (Ezekiel 20:21a). Yet again, God could have poured out his wrath (Ezekiel 20:21b), but also again, God says, “I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out” (Ezekiel 20:22). So he burdened them with added laws and afflicted them and even forewarned them that the curse of exile would be in their future – but still he spared them (Ezekiel 20:23-26).

Beginning a fourth cycle, God took these people and settled them in the promised land victoriously (Ezekiel 20:28a). But yet again, Israel rebelled against God – not only rebelled, they “blasphemed” God by betraying him to idols (Ezekiel 20:28b-29), and so defiled the land (Ezekiel 36:17-18). Eventually, God did pour out his wrath (Ezekiel 36:18), scattering Israel in exile among the nations (Ezekiel 20:23-24; 36:19). But that had a heavy consequence. “When they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, 'These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land'” (Ezekiel 36:20). Because of the exile they suffered as a result of their sin, God's name came into disrepute and was blasphemed continually among the nations (Isaiah 52:5 LXX). And so God vowed that he would redeem them in order to defend and vindicate his name as holy (Ezekiel 36:23). “You shall know that I am the LORD when I deal with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways nor according to your corrupt deeds, O House of Israel” (Ezekiel 20:44). But he warned Israel sternly that they must never again allow this to happen. As bearers of God's name, never again may they profane it that way (Ezekiel 20:39).

We come down to Paul's time, though, and find that the problem has not gone away. He challenges the pride his countrymen show toward the Gentile nations, their boastfulness. “You who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one mustn't commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who hate idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the Law – you dishonor God by breaking the Law! For, as it is written, 'The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you'” (Romans 2:21-24). He's quoting there from the Greek translation of Isaiah (Isaiah 52:5 LXX), applying it to what he sees in his own day.

But what has all that to do with us? So much in every way. For we too have a High Priest, one far better than Aaron, and dressed in greater finery. Jesus is our “Great High Priest who has passed through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14), gone to be “a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man” (Hebrews 8:2). He not only wears God's name, he is God's Name. And just as Aaron the high priest placed the name of God on the people of Israel under the old covenant, so Jesus our High Priest stamps the name of God onto the people who live under the new covenant. For he is the one who's really acting whenever someone is “baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). As we recall especially today, the Name of God is the Name equally of Father and Son and Holy Spirit – it's a triune Name, the Name of the Holy Trinity. It is stamped onto us in baptism, as Jesus claims us for himself and for his Father by the Holy Spirit. And each and every time we gather here, through the priestly ministry of the gospel, we all have that same triune Name stamped onto us again and again in blessing – that's the point of the benediction. The Church is the New Israel, the army standing with Christ the Lamb on Mount Zion, “who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1), and who – through the perseverance of faith that works by love – are destined to bear that Holy Name for all eternity before God's face (Revelation 22:4).

And so a question hangs over our heads. We heard Ezekiel's laments and Paul's accusations of Israel as it stood either awaiting Christ or ignoring Christ. What of this New Israel that confesses Christ, baptized into the Name that the Messiah shares with the Lord GOD and with the Spirit of the LORD? We've received, or are receiving, all the gifts that God promised through Ezekiel to give Israel for the protection of his name: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses... I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you... And I will put my Spirit within you...” (Ezekiel 36:25-27). With these greater gifts comes a deep responsibility. We carry God's name. It is lifted up on the Church's head, and on the lives of each one of us. But have we acquitted ourselves better in the new covenant than in the old? Or have our very lives lifted up God's name in vain, causing it to be profaned among the nations?

Sometimes the story has been a good one. But not always. At times, we Christians have, in fact, borne God's name to vain ends in how we've lived. There's first of all the fact of division. We've divided so far as to fall out of one communion, tearing at the unity of the one Church Jesus founded. For well over a thousand years, there have been cases where missionary efforts have been compromised by squabbles between commissioning churches over territorial jurisdiction. In Jerusalem, for as long as anyone can remember, the keys to the church built over the empty tomb of Jesus are held by a Muslim family – because the different divided factions of Christians couldn't stop fighting over it. There's a ladder that's been stuck in one spot for three centuries because they can't all agree to move it. In 2002, one monk moved his chair over an invisible line, and the fight that broke out sent eleven people to the hospital. In our divisions, we bear God's name in vain, causing it to be profaned among the nations.

And then there's the problem of violence. As far back as the dawn of the fifth century, one archbishop could tell of a time when, as he traveled into exile, a riotous band of monks showed up at the house where he was staying, bragging about beating up soldiers and threatening to torch the place with him inside it. They'd been egged on, apparently, by the local bishop, who had a bone to pick with the exiled archbishop. Elsewhere, a mob of monks thronged a governor, and one threw a rock and nearly stoned the man to death. Centuries later, in 1096, the year after the First Crusade was called, bands of Christian knights and peasants in Germany began massacring Jewish communities in spite of the efforts of Church authorities to protect them. After the Protestant revolution against Church authorities in the 1500s, believers on both sides persecuted each other to death, depending only on who had the support of political powers in each place. And as political factions and territories pledged their allegiance to different versions of Christianity, the next few centuries saw dozens of wars and hundreds of thousands of deaths. It was partly in response to these terrible wars between Christians that the so-called Age of Enlightenment swept Europe, beginning the project of reducing religious influence in society, giving birth to our secularized world of today and the rise of atheism. It's in large part because we bore God's name in vain, causing it now to be so widely profaned among the nations.

There's of course the third problem of invoking God's name to justify oppression. Think of those who, like Satan twisting Scripture in the desert, abused the Bible in the interest of an agenda of racial supremacy and even slavery. In the Civil War, both Union and Confederacy were absolutely convinced – and said so out loud – that they were fighting in God's name, whether for unity or for division, whether for liberty or for slavery. During the era of the struggle for civil rights, too many professing Christians in this country sang from their pews each Sunday morning and, by nightfall, were burning crosses in white hoods – and, I'll tell you, as the historian of our denomination, that our founding bishop himself said, “My attitude toward the Klan is sympathetic. … A number of our ministers are interested in the Klan.” Even today, on one side of the political aisle or the other, American Christians routinely have betrayed the gospel they profess by slaying it on the altar of political expediency; and the hypocrisy has driven countless people, young and old, away from the Church and from her God. In these ways, we've borne and do bear God's name in vain, causing it to be profaned in our nation.

Who could forget, either, the number of evangelists and church leaders caught up in sex scandals? It's only been fifteen years since the news came out that Ted Haggard – then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (to which our denomination belongs) – was busy using crystal meth and buying favors from a male prostitute. (He later took initiative to reinstate himself in ministry by just starting his own church.) Other high-profile leaders caught up in sex scandals in our memory include televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, evangelist Ravi Zacharias, Catholic cardinal-archbishop Ted McCarrick, and even Billy Graham's grandson Tullian Tchividjian. Not five miles from here, at a large church we all know of, the pastor of student ministries is currently being investigated – presumed innocent until proven guilty, of course – on charges related to child pornography. As this relentless string of stories has filled the news for my entire lifetime, we have to say: plenty of prominent Christian leaders bore God's name in vain, causing it to be profaned in our nation.

But it isn't just these outrages of history or these high-profile scandals that scandalize the world. More often, it can be the everyday actions of believers whose lives betray the gospel. It's the graceless judgmentalism with which we set ourselves up as pure, good, decent, God-fearing folk, like the meanest Pharisees of old, looking down and pointing the finger and saying, “Unclean, unclean” to everything but the mirror. It's the defiant sin of the worldliness we willingly embrace as we justify surrender to the temptations that speak our language. And it's the hypocrisy of the double standards that manage to weave those two threads together into one mocking pattern of death. Talking with numerous non-believing friends over the years, I've lost track of how many have cited pastors who were afraid of questions, or parents who claimed Christian warrant for deserting their children in an hour of need, or the example of Christians who were vocally pro-life until their son impregnated someone and then were suddenly willing to pay for the abortion, or Christians who firmly judged divorce until they walked out on their families to get remarried, or Christians who turned their churches into private social clubs for their friends and gave visitors the cautious stink-eye 'til they went away. These are common threads.

Wherever any of this happens, it is we – regular Christians dropping the weight of our calling – who have so borne and worn God's name in vain that we cause it to be profaned in our family circles or our workplaces or our neighborhoods. Whenever we do not love our neighbors, we bear in vain the name of the God whose nature and name is Love. Whenever we fail to preach what God has said, we bear in vain the name of the God who is Truth; but whenever we fail to practice what we preach, we likewise bear in vain the name of the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In the face of all this, it's worth knowing that it isn't a new problem. It shows up in the oldest recorded Christian sermon outside the New Testament. We don't know who preached it or where exactly, but we know the unknown preacher was speaking just a hundred years after Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead. And here's a bit of what he said:

Brethren, let's at last repent and be alert for the good, for we're filled with much foolishness and evil! … Let's not wish to please only ourselves, but – by our righteousness – also those who are outside, so that the Name isn't blasphemed because of us. For the Lord says, “Continually my name is blasphemed among all the Gentiles,” and again, “Woe to the one through whom my name is blasphemed!” How is it blasphemed? When we don't do what we say. For when the Gentiles hear from our mouths the oracles of God, they marvel at them as beautiful and great. But afterwards, when they find out that our actions aren't worthy of the words we speak, they turn to blasphemy, saying it's a myth and an error. For when they hear from us that God says, “It's no credit to you if you love those who love you, but it is a credit to you if you love your enemies and those who hate you” – when they hear this, they marvel at this extraordinary goodness. But when they see that we don't love not only those who hate us but even those who love us, they laugh at us – and the Name is blasphemed. (2 Clement 13)

It's been nearly one thousand nine hundred years since some preacher blew his congregation's minds with those words. Do we get it yet? If our lives don't match the gospel we say we believe in, then we're a stumbling stone, we're the cause of the world's cursing God, we're dragging God's sacred name through the mud, and so we wear it and bear it in vain on our lives. And, brothers and sisters, we dare not do that!

But here's the good news. By the Spirit poured into our hearts by the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ, we can lift up this holy name with our lives, we can carry it well, we can be the cause of marvelous praise among the nations – starting right here in our own backyard. The grace has been given us to really live up to this awe-inspiring privilege. From baptism to benediction, every resource you need in order to love abundantly is already at your fingertips; every glory of God's name is ready to light up your face. A bottomless well of blessings can flow through God's name engraved on your heart and soul, streaming the radiance to the world around you. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, one God, one Trinity in Unity, one Holy Love, world without end! Amen and amen.