In today’s reading from Acts, the religious leaders of Jerusalem interrogate Peter and John after the two apostles heal “a man lame from birth” in the Temple (3:2). Already “annoyed” that Peter and John continue to proclaim their teacher’s resurrection (4:2), other adjectives — incredulous, suspicious, wary, perhaps worried — lie behind the priests’ first question: “By what power or name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7)
Peter tells them what he had already told the healed man: “This man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth… There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (4:10, 12).
It must have sounded like blasphemy to the ears of men who no doubt knew the start of Psalm 54 by heart: “Save me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by your might.” Salvation was in the power of the God whose name was too holy to be pronounced, not through any human being.
Not that the name of Jesus is not holy. Too often throughout church history, his followers have taken it in vain. Yet the saving power that makes possible miracles greater even than a disabled man’s healing comes to us through the most ordinary of names, one as common then as it is rare now.
There is no other name by which we must be saved than the name by which a Jewish mother calmed her baby — and later grieved his crucifixion. Cosmic power is invested in a term of tender intimacy.
In this week’s gospel text, Jesus gives himself another name: “The good shepherd,” who “lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11). But this Jesus does not simply care for an anonymous flock at a distance. “I know my own,” he says, “and my own know me” (v 14).
As much as Jesus’ name means to us (“my own know me”), our names matter to him (“I know my own”). This morning we witnessed our nephew’s baptism. A banner behind the font featured part of a verse that I always think of in connection with this sacrament:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you (Isa 43:1-2)
In baptism, Jesus names us… and claims us (“you are mine… I know my own”); we are as beloved to him in our baptism as Jesus was to his Father in his baptism. Then he sends us forth, to pass unafraid through deeper waters in search of the “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” but will “will listen to my voice” (John 10:16).
Empowered by the same Holy Spirit that filled Peter in Jerusalem (Acts 4:8), we are no more able than him to “keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard” (4:20). So let us go out this week in the name of Jesus, telling of that good shepherd to those whose names are already dear to him.
Next week’s lectionary readings: Psalm 22:25-31; John 15:1-8; Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21.