THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT: THIS IS MY NAME FOREVER.

Let’s start this reflection with Matt Redman’s song titled, 10,000 Reasons. It opens this way: Bless the Lord O my soul, O my soul, worship his holy name. Sing like never before O my soul. I worship your holy name.” God reveals his holy name to Moses and gives him a mandate to make his name known to the Israelites. Two things happen in this encounter: 1. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” 2. “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Moses' mission to lead the Israelites on their journey to freedom hinge on these two revelations.

To the second point, God says to Moses, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites. “I Am sent me to you.” “This is my name forever, thus am I to be remembered through all generations” (Ex. 3:15). “Through all generations” means it is the same God in our time and through the ages to come. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that God simply reveals his name as "I AM", as the God who is always there, present to his people to save them (nos. 203 – 208). Moses is commanded to take off his sandals to depict awe in the presence of God. Then, Moses is enjoined to administer this holy name to the people so everyone would reverence it. The more Moses understands God’s name, the more his mission for Israel is fruitful among the Israelites.

The name of God is held holy in the Old Testament in a manner that the average person is not allowed to utter at all. Only the high priest utters God’s name in the Holy of Holies, the holiest place in the temples where the 10 commandments are preserved. Imagine how much we have dropped the ball.

The encounter with Moses speaks to the 2nd Commandment, “You shall not invoke the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. For the Lord will not leave unpunished anyone who invokes his name in vain” (Ex 20:7). People take the holy name very lightly in our time. God’s name is used as a common curse word. This goes against the 2nd commandment. It is a sin. Yes, using the Lord’s name as a curse word is a serious reason to go to confession.

We read in the Pauline epistles that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Paul writes about the name of Jesus, “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.… (Phil 2:10) That is so beautiful.

The face of Jesus is painted after the image found on the shroud of Turin. The Shroud is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus where he leaves an imprint of the Holy Face. The face of Jesus communicates the image of divinity with God the Father perfectly formed into the face of Jesus. Jesus speaks to the disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” This is the face of love and mercy taking us back to the covenant with Moses, “This is my name forever, thus am I to be remembered through all generations” (Ex. 3:15). We are bound to honor the holy name of Jesus. 

We could ask the question, “What does God’s name mean for you?” As a Christian, what is your gut feeling when you hear people messing with God’s name?

In 2011, Joshua Keating, a former associate editor at Foreign Policy wrote an article analyzing the incident where a man insulted President Barrack Obama on television. Keating used the opportunity to highlight several implications for insulting high-ranking government officials with many global instances: “In Thailand, a country with some of the world’s harshest lesè majesté laws, insulting the monarchy can bring a sentence of three to 15 years in prison, and the scope of the law is pretty wide. In Turkey, where it’s illegal not just to criticize the government but "Turkishness" in general, a British artist was fined for placing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s head on a dog’s body in a series of collages. In Iran, a prominent journalist was sentenced to 16 months in prison for calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a megalomaniac. In pre-revolutionary Egypt, you could go to jail for four years for insulting Hosni Mubarak. It was even a jailable offense to insult foreign heads of state, as the late author Idris Ali learned when he wrote a novel critical of Muammar al-Qaddafi. In Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, you can be arrested just for sending an email with pictures of the president’s mansion. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has also used laws against insulting the president to silence his critics in the media. But it’s not just autocracies or developing countries where people have to watch what they say about the head of state. In France, the crime of insulting the president can carry a fine of up to 45,000 euros. In the Netherlands, there were two separate arrests in 2007 of citizens calling Queen Beatrix a whore. You can read a lot more on this in the June 30, 2011 article in Foreign Policy (FP).

Don’t we see cases in our time where people go about destroying sacred status and knocking down holy images without remorse? It is important to reflect on how much we fear human authorities in relation to how little the creator is revered. God is the I am and desires utmost respect. God is bigger than the world and bigger than any religion. St. Thomas Aquinas calls him “Ipsum esse subsistens” (the subsistent act of to-be itself). The truth is that God’s existence does not depend on whether we believe or not. God exists irrespective of what we think. He is!

This leads to the issue of repentance. Christ uses two incidents in the gospel to call the people to repentance. First, Galileans killed by Pilate. Second, eighteen individuals killed by the tower of Siloam. He warns that those people are not worse sinners than those alive. Yet, the need for repentance becomes pertinent. Christ’s use of the parable of the barren fig tree is apt. The Christian life is not barren. It is in constant search for life and fertility. Unlike the barren fig tree, we are called to listen to the I am of our existence and to return to him in repentance.

God is God for all ages. He is and will always be there for his people. God is unchangeable and hears the cry of the oppressed. Like the invitation to Moses, God desires that we take off our “sandals” and adore his holy name. Our “sandals” symbolize unworthiness and contamination due to sin. Lent invites us to drop our sandals and return to God. God is not a being who suddenly popped up. He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Hence, he speaks to each of us today, “This is my name forever, thus am I to be remembered through all generations” (Ex. 3:15).

Let’s all decide today to defend the Holy Name of God. We don’t have to be lecturing those who take His name in vain but if you hear someone use the Lord’s name as a blasphemy, you can gently say, “Jesus Christ is our Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Gently ask the person to respect the holy name of Jesus. And remember, you have more than 10,000 reasons to bless God’s name. Amen.

Readings: 1st- Ex. 3:1-8, 13-15; 2nd- 1 Cor. 10:1-6, 10-12; Gospel- Lk. 13:1-9