The Name

Names come and go. They are fickle and short-lived. The once proud, top-of-the-world Rockefeller name has been replaced by Gates. Lord and Taylor has outlived Gimbels and a dozen others. The Hyundai brand delivers freighters to American ports daily while Packards are museum pieces crowded alongside Studebakers and DeSotos or old hulks in dusty barns waiting to be rescued by pickers. Esso and Amoco are gone, replaced by Valero and BP!

In Philadelphia, the once proud Wanamaker brand is all but forgotten. Tastykake struggles to be competitive. Detroit’s J. L. Hudson is a quaint memory. Conglomerates have eaten up some of my favorite old tool manufacturers. Should we give some thought to what might happen to Campbell’s Soup and Coca Cola. Will some Third World outfit introduce alternate quick lunches or liquid refreshments our great grandchildren will only see in museums?

While many brands have come and gone, and today’s innovations will someday be oddities to be discussed by retirees between turns at shuffleboard courts, there is a NAME which has been and will forever be above all names. Moses asked that the One who spoke to him, “Who shall I say sent me?” Samson’s father, Manoah, asked, “What is your Name?” Isaiah, experienced a brilliant revelation in His Presence and wrote, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Peter and John, empowered by the NAME, healed the crippled man at the Gate Beautiful. When they were ordered by the religious establishment to cease and desist preaching that Jesus was raised from the dead, They boldly replied, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved,” and added, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Fredrick Whitfield’s poem, an ode to Jesus’ Name, was often sung in my boyhood church. I think the lyrics ought to still be sung, not tucked away in a museum hymn book.

There is a Name I love to hear,
I love to sing its worth;
It sounds like music in my ear,
The sweetest Name on earth.

Refrain:
Oh, how I love Jesus,
Oh, how I love Jesus,
Oh, how I love Jesus,
Because He first loved me!

It tells me of a Savior’s love,
Who died to set me free;
It tells me of His precious blood,
The sinner’s perfect plea.

It tells me of a Father’s smile
Beaming upon His child;
It cheers me through this little while,
Through desert, waste, and wild.

It tells me what my Father hath
In store for every day,
And though I tread a darksome path,
Yields sunshine all the way.

It tells of One whose loving heart
Can feel my deepest woe;
Who in each sorrow bears a part
That none can bear below.