“…and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6

Shakespeare’s Juliet famously posed the question, “What’s in a name?” in the play that bears her name along with that of her star-crossed lover, Romeo. For those of us claiming the name “Christian,” the season of Advent provides us the opportunity to reply to Juliet, “A lot!”

For us, this Sunday is the first Sunday of a new liturgical year. While commercials would have us believe we have jumped from Halloween to Christmas, our faith marks the four Sundays approaching the celebration of Jesus’ birth and Christ’s anticipated return as a time of preparation and perspective.

This year, our Presbytery reflections will center on the four themes highlighted by the four candles of the Advent wreath, beginning this week with hope, followed by peace, joy, and love in the weeks ahead.

Some traditions also refer to the hope candle as the “prophecy candle,” directing our attention to the scriptural witness of the prophets, particularly Isaiah, as they proclaimed the coming of a Messiah, or God’s anointed one, often to a people whose current circumstance seemed arguably God-forsaken.

Especially in those times when the weight of oppression seemed particularly heavy, when injustice seemed more the norm than the exception, and the pain of suffering overwhelmed the awareness of any other reality, I could imagine the first hearers of the prophets begging, “Say more about this One who is to come to make all this wrong right. If we are to hold on to hope even another day, you have to give us something more to hold onto! What will this Messiah do for us? How will we recognize him?”
Isaiah’s answer? “He shall be called Immanuel, God with us, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Names can have the power to convey so much, as ways of both presenting ourselves to others and grounding ourselves in important aspects of who we are at our core. Followers of Jesus as the Christ – both in his day, today, and in generations to come – recognize him as God incarnate because of the way he embodied those names Isaiah and other prophets voiced so many years ago.

And for those of us who have claimed “Christian” as our identity, our task this Advent is to contemplate how well or poorly we, as the body of Christ, have been living into these names through our actions as well as our words.

Individually, have we availed ourselves of the grace and forgiveness Christ offers so that we might be freed to embody God’s love in our relationships with God and whosoever, including ourselves? Collectively, is the Church perceived as truly bearing witness to the justice, peace, and resurrection power the world needs today?
Advent provides us the opportunity to take stock of how we are to answer those questions, and to make the course corrections necessary with the Spirit’s help to incarnate the love of God more fully in and through us in the year ahead – regardless of the circumstances the year brings.

Co-Moderator of the PC(USA), Rev. Cece Armstrong, shared a definition of hope with us at our last stated meeting: “Hallelujah, On Purpose Everyday!” This Advent, may we find ourselves blessed to live into that identity as a people of hope, along with the other names our neighbors are looking to hold onto in such a time as this. “Come, Lord Jesus!”