Baptismal meditation

Matthew 28: Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things, whatever I have commanded you.

We heard in the sermon this morning about the Name that we invoke in our prayers, the powerful name of Jesus that moves our Father to give us all good things in and through His Spirit. But the name of God is not just a name we invoke. It is also a name we bear.

This is the way the Third Commandment puts it: You shall not bear the name of Yahweh in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that bears His name in vain. The commandment is not about cursing, swearing, and saying four-letter words. The commandment is about our whole conduct of life.

The commandment assumes that just as God has taken on our name, so we take on God’s name. God has taken our name by calling Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Israel; the Lord of the Church. God the Son has taken our name by taking flesh, so that we can say that our God is also a man. God identifies Himself by His relation to us, and incorporates our name into His. By the same token, He shares His name with us. By being His servants, the disciples of Jesus, we take on the name of our Lord, the name of Christ, the name Christian. As a good Husband, God shares His name with His bride.

Baptism is the rite of naming where this takes place. Jesus commands His disciples to baptize the nations in the Triune name. This naming makes us part of the household, it makes us property of the Trinity, it makes us members of the bride. Ada is taking this name today, and she is called to bear it well. She is forbidden to bear this name lightly. Her whole life should be an unpacking and unfolding of the weighty name she receives here in baptism.

One of the vows you take is the vow to pray with and for your child, and I want to focus our attention there for a moment. We pray in the name of Jesus, as Pastor Smith has reminded us. But we also call on our Father by virtue of the name we bear. “We are called by Your name; do not forsake us!” Jeremiah cries, and Daniel says, “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”

Because God has placed His name on His people, we can call on Him and expect Him to answer. Because we belong to our God, His reputation in the world is bound up with our own, and He answers prayer because of the name we bear, the name of Father, Son, and Spirit.

As Ada grows, teach her to pray. Teach her to pray in the name of Jesus the mighty Son of the Father. But teach her too that she can pray in confidence because she bears the name of her God, because she is among those people who are “called by the Lord’s name.”