The Name of the Lord

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Isaiah 12:3-6 (01/06) Third Reading, Blessing of the Waters at the Feast of Theophany​

The Name of the Lord: Isaiah 12:3-6, especially vss. 4: “Praise the Lord; call upon His name. Declare His glorious things among the Gentiles and make mention that His name is exalted.” Saint Peter of Damascus observes that“...in both the Old and the New Testament, the names given are appropriate. Thus Adam was named from the four cardinal points; for the four letters of his name are the initial letters of the Greek words for East [anatole], West [dusme], North [apo borra] and South [mesembria],” and in Hebrew, of course, Adam is the word for man.


Scripture records that names were changed, God giving someone a new direction in life, as in the case of Jacob being renamed Israel. Born clutching the heel of his twin brother Esau, he was named Jacob by his parents: he who took hold (Gen. 25:26). However, after wrestling God and having endured, Jacob asked for a blessing from his Opponent, for God met him as a man at a ford in the river Jabbok where they struggled. The answer was: “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have prevailed with God and with men” (Gen. 32:28).


Of course, the most significant Name in Scripture, “...the name...above every name” (Phil. 2:9), is God. Moses, desiring support for his leadership from the people of Israel, asked God to tell him His Name, to which God answered, I Am or The One Who Is. (Ex. 3:14). The form of this name in Hebrew grammatically would be present tense, first and/or third person, singular, of the verb to be; but in Hebrew the forms are not used, being understood: “The tree tall,” for example, instead of “The tree is tall.” In our Greek, Septuagint version of Ex. 3:14, the Name of God is ὁ Ών, or The One Who Is, which appears in icons of the Lord Jesus in the letters on the Cross within the halo around His head. It is heard in the blessing at the end of Vespers, “Christ our God, the Existing One, is blessed, always; now and ever and unto ages of ages.”


Saint Maximos says that “...the Father’s Name is not something...He has acquired.... He does not have a beginning, so that at a certain moment He begins to be Father or King, but He is eternal and so is eternally Father and King.” Thus, “...the Name of God the Father exists substantially in the eternal, only-begotten Son,” Who teaches us to call God, Our Father.



Therefore, when Isaiah directs us to “...call upon His Name” (Is. 12:4), the Prophet shows our dependency on God, our incapacity and inability to save ourselves. We are to call on Him Who saves, on Jesus our Lord, Whose Name means, Savior (Mt. 1:21). We do this pre-eminently in the Jesus Prayer as Saint Theophan the Recluse says, “...because it unites the soul with our Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus is the only door to union with God.” After all, union with Christ is the aim of the prayer and of its continual usage among Orthodox Christians.


Isaiah tells us to “...make mention that His Name is exalted” (Is. 12:4). Doing so insures that God’s name is never used disrespectfully (Ex. 20:7), but is uttered only in prayer, worship, or confession of faith: “Thank God; God knows; Leave it to God; God forbid; Glory to God.”


How blessed to “Sing to the name of the Lord...” (Is. 12:5), to worship and adore His Holy Name. No wonder Orthodoxy has such a musical tradition of a capella singing, of lifting only the voice in praise to our Creator and Savior! It is not essential that any one of us be a great musician, but that singing be fostered among us - even for the tone deaf! Saint Romanos the Melodist was illiterate, with no musical training, and despised by certain educated clergy; but, through the intercessions of the Theotokos, he composed more than a thousand of our most beautiful Kontakia as a Deacon of the Great Church in Constantinople.


Sing unto the Lord, bless His name; proclaim from day to day the good tidings of His salvation. Declare among the nations His glory. (Ps. 95:2, 3)

DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS​

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