The Naming Day

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon in the beautiful English countryside setting of Devonshire, an event involving about fifty friends and family gathered to mark our latest grandson’s birth. Called a ‘naming day’ it represented a kind of non-Christian christening. Perhaps, partly because I think paganism predates Christianity my son and his partner hoped, like themselves, that everyone would be touched by a deeper and more meaningful experience of creation.

Obviously, as infants, we would have been present when our parents had us either christened with names or prayed over with thanks to God. This event was markedly different and more interactively engaging than a traditional Christian service. As the ceremony began all those present were acknowledged as having different religious or non-religious backgrounds. This implied, for me at least, that respect for religious diversity was to be considered as ideal and self-evident.

Of-course, along with the friendly picnic beforehand, the ceremony itself was deliberately arranged to blend within the natural environment. Using primitive technology my son set a fire in our midst and his partner, our grandson’s mother, engaged us all in singing. Repeating a simple mothering invocation, (she had recalled from her time in Burkina Faso), we echoed her words as we queued around the fire to greet their son and bring to him our own personal welcome.

I imagine that the implicit purpose of the event was our grandson’s celebrated welcome into the world of human community. The setting established a connection with that elemental and indefinable something which had brought each of our own lives into existence. For me it was more poignant because it gave effect to a meeting between two families and many longstanding friends, who would otherwise have remained complete strangers. Their only child, a beautiful child born in their middle years, was gifted to them, as well as to us, as representative of something unusually auspicious.

In me personally, the occasion also produced a sense of pathos. I had felt it necessary to keep that pathos under control until, seizing an opportunity to speak, my words were soon stifled as my feelings gave way to deep sobs. As he held his son, I was recalling the thanks I had given to God for him as our own second son. With emotional difficulty, I explained that, for me, my son’s name could never be detached from the peace I had received with God almost exactly nine months before he was born. But this naming day sincerely sought to invoke something profoundly important about the blessings attached to the name of that new person whose life was received by us all because of our familial or friendly connection to his parents.

In the Areopagus in Athens the first century A.D. inscription that struck the Apostle Paul as being apposite for his message was attributed to an 'unknown god.' Today, my deeply felt and emotional reflection forces me conclude that such an unknown god can neither be thanked nor be called upon to deliver a blessing. Indeed, such a god is impervious to the truth that creation is the blessed reflection of God's glory and power.

I think it true, but largely misunderstood, that no creature, pagan or otherwise, can invoke a blessing upon themselves. The true praise of all God’s creatures must surely involve the mission to recognize a naming day in every heart which does invoke the blessing of joy and peace with God. It is an exalted name indeed! “Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name… “Philippians 2:9. (ESVUK)

Discovering the true value of creation cannot be obtained from what is pre-supposed to have occurred with nameless randomness. The value of a name must itself presuppose true meaning and purpose. True meaning and purpose must itself rest upon knowing the name of the Personal Being who gave it that true meaning and purpose. I understand, from one commentary, that "God identifies Himself as Elohim 35 times at the start of Scripture. In fact, Elohim is the only name used for God from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3.’  “Elohim is one of the most frequently used names for God in the Scriptures. It is this word which is used in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth.” In fact, the word appears some 2,750 times in the Old Testament.”

Literally meaning strong, Elohim suggests the invisible attributes of omnipotence as well as omniscience and omnipresence. By the power of His Exalted Being he not only created all things but transcends all things. By the awesome deeds of creation Elohim ensured his divine signature is writ large upon even the smallest of particles in existence.

How is it possible to know and exalt the Person responsible for the value, meaning and purpose of creation? Firstly, the Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded in his letter to the Romans, how creation supplies its own evidence for who is responsible for its existence. “For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” (Romans 1:19-20).

Secondly, and because I have argued the need to understand meaning and purpose from the point of view of the One who gave it meaning and purpose, there must be potential in man which meets that need. Faith is what is needed to receive the truth of God’s Word. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” Hebrews 11:3.

It is considered, by the Christian faith, that there is an exalted name whose value, reason and purpose can be understood and known fully in the Gospels. Indeed, there is no other name which better speaks to every other named person, as being more exalted. “Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name…" Philippians 2:9. (ESVUK)