1.
Grace, mercy,
and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Happy New Year to you all!!! I pray that the Lord would richly bless all
of you and your families as we come into a New Year. The message from God’s Word today is taken
from Psalm 8 and is entitled, “The
Majestic Name of Jesus,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Do you remember when you went to college for
the first time or maybe to summer camp and you were going to be away from home
for a while? Maybe you remember that just a few days before you were to leave
for college or summer camp your mother was busy putting your name on all of
your belongings either sewing it in or with permanent marker. Your name was on your coats, sweaters and
shirts, your sweats, and even your underwear. Mom was taking no chances. Now, why did she do that? Well, to mark that “stuff” as belonging to you,
to make sure that no one made off with you T-shirts or sweatpants. We put our
name on things to mark them as our own. Guess
what? God does the same thing. He puts his name down to mark his property.
3.
Today we
celebrate the circumcision of Mary’s Son. It was at a Jewish boy’s circumcision
that he officially received his name. If you read carefully the Christmas story
in Luke’s Gospel, you’ll find that the child wasn’t called by the name “Jesus”
until the name was set on him at his circumcision. Circumcision and naming went
together in the old covenant. Both were ways of “marking” a person as being in
a special relationship to the God of Israel. The Child of Mary is marked off
with the name “Jesus”—”Yahweh saves!”—because
he would save his people from their sins.
And, how has God ever given salvation? With his name. Wherever God puts
his name, there he puts his blessing. The
same blessings he gives to us he gives to all who are called by his name. A new
year! There can be no better way to enter the New Year than to remember that God
has marked us as his own with the majestic name of Jesus.
4.
This is why
King David writes in Psalm 8 that God’s name is majestic. Psalm 8:1 says, “1O LORD, our Lord, how majestic
is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” David begins the psalm by encouraging God’s
people to praise God’s name. As we learn in the Second Commandment and the
First Petition, God’s name includes more than just the various titles that are
given to him. The name of the Lord is everything he has revealed about himself
to us. In other words, God’s name is his Word. “God’s name is kept holy when his Word is taught in its truth and
purity” (Luther’s Catechism, 286).
5.
David
mentions a specific way that the Lord’s name is majestic. His glory is evident
“above the heavens.” The majesty and glory of our Creator is
evident in the vastness of the universe, the orderly rotation of our solar
system around the sun, and the powerful weather patterns of earth (Ps 19:1–4).
Astronomers and other scientists who deny the hand of God in the universe are
turning a blind eye to the majestic evidence of God’s glory before them.
6.
Psalm 8:2
says, “2Out of the mouth of
babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still
the enemy and the avenger.” Verse 2
stands in sharp contrast to verse 1. Even though the Lord has placed his glory
in the heavens for all to see, it only takes the voices of believing children
to send his enemies away. Children of all ages, from infants to preadolescents,
are included in this verse. The praise
of even the smallest believer has the strength to defeat God’s enemies. On Palm
Sunday the hosannas of little children were enough to quiet Jesus’ enemies. A
3-year–old making a joyful noise, “Jesus
loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” is enough to send Satan
scurrying back to hell. A kindergarten class singing “I am Jesus’ little lamb” is powerful enough to silence the harshest
critic of Christianity. The devil lines
up his forces against Christ and his people. While the devil was crushed at the
cross (Ge 3:15; 1 Jn 3:8), he still prowls around this world seeking to destroy
the church (Eph 6:12; 1 Pe 5:8). The Lord musters his strength to oppose the
forces of evil. This strength is found not in the immensity of the universe but
in the still, small voice of the gospel (1 Ki 19:9b–13; Eph 6:13–17).
7.
Psalm 8:3-9
says, “3When I look at your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set
in place 4what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of
man that you care for him? 5Yet you have made him a little lower
than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6You
have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things
under his feet, 7all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the
field, 8the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever
passes along the paths of the seas. 9O LORD, our Lord, how majestic
is your name in all the earth!” For
God the work of creating huge galaxies was detailed handiwork. We might think
that the creation of mankind was even more trivial, since the whole human race
is nothing but a little speck compared to just one of God’s stars. But, God
created Adam and Eve to have dominion over the universe. He created man and
woman in his image so they could be holy and live in fellowship with him. The billions
of people on the earth are only a small speck in the vast reaches of the
universe, but there’s more understanding of God in the mind of one child than
in millions of stars.
8.
But through
the fall into sin, mankind’s fellowship with God was broken, and his dominion
over the universe was diminished. We can still use the intelligence God has
given us to gain a partial understanding and control over the world in which we
live. But we as human beings no longer have an uncontested dominion over the
earth. The peace that ruled in Eden is gone.
Now animals kill human beings. Human beings kill animals. And human
beings slaughter other human beings. We live in a hostile world. In spite of
modern medicine, our control of diseases is imperfect. Even the tiniest viruses
can kill us. We battle against weeds, pests, and diseases, against floods and
droughts in order to produce our food from the soil of the earth. We’re killed
by our own machines and poisoned by our own pollution. Thousands of people
perish in earthquakes and other disasters. And, finally the day comes when each
of us must return to the ground from which we were created.
9.
Through sin we
lost the dominion over the earth that God had entrusted to his highest
creatures, but God sent Christ as the second Adam in order to regain the
dominion we had lost and to restore it to us. Psalm 8 is quoted twice in the
New Testament as a messianic prophecy that was fulfilled when Christ came and
regained dominion over the world for us. As true God, Christ already had
dominion over the whole universe. But when he was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary, he took on a human nature like ours, though
without sin. In this state he undertook the work of regaining our lost dominion
for us.
10.
During his
state of humiliation, God “made Jesus a
little lower than the heavenly beings.” During his stay on earth Jesus
didn’t look like God or even like an angel, but like an ordinary man. Psalm 8
was fulfilled throughout Jesus’ ministry on earth when he assumed the form of a
humble servant. Jesus was “made a little
lower than the heavenly beings” when he was helped by angels at the time of
his temptation and in Gethsemane (Matthew 4:11; Luke 22:43). Psalm 8 was
fulfilled when Jesus’ enemies refused to recognize him as God and instead
ridiculed him as a lowly carpenter and when they mocked him on the cross. Psalm
8 was also fulfilled at Calvary when Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
11.
But Jesus
didn’t stay in this humble condition. When he had finished his work of defeating
sin, death, and the devil, he ascended to heaven and was seated at the right
hand of God. He now has all power in heaven and on earth. He’s crowned with
honor and glory. Psalm 8:6 is quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:27 as a statement of
Christ’s rule over all things. How
majestic is the name of Jesus!
12.
Just as Adam
brought death to all people, so Christ, the second Adam, won life for all
people. Adam lost the dominion that had been entrusted to him, but Christ is
now ruling the world for the benefit of his people. He will share this dominion
with you in the new heavens and the new earth. There the peace of Eden will
exist once again. Sin made the glorious view of mankind expressed in Psalm 8
untrue, but Christ, the Son of Man, has made it true once again. When we
understand this truth, we can sing the end of this Psalm with great joy in this
New Year God has given to us: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your
name in all the earth!” Amen.
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