THE NAME CHANGES EVERYTHING!!

Dear Emily, In spite of the challenges of the pandemic has caused, eight choir members presented a musical celebration for the congregation of the Caney Spring UMC. Here is the opening story that I used. INTODUCTION TO “JESUS THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THAT NAME” CHRISTMAS 2020 “It was the name that changed everything!” A few weeks ago, I received a text from a lady who is a friend but not a close friend. I had her son in class several years ago and that’s why her name is in my contact list. So when a text popped up with her name, I wondered what in the world she could be texting me about. Her husband loves yard sales and auctions. All year long he stops at yard sales or goes to auctions and buys things, brings them home and stores them in a building in his back yard. Then on tractor pull weekend when visitors come to Chapel Hill from towns and states far and wide, he pulls out all the things he has bought over the year and has his own big yard sale. Her text read “Mrs. Brown, my husband found this vase in a box of things that he bought at a yard sale, and we thought you might like to have it.” If you know me very well, you know that I’m definitely not the first or second or even third person one would think of when looking at a vase. I’m just not a vase person. Then she sent me a picture of the vase. Here it is.

I don’t know what your taste in a vase is but this is definitely not mine. There is nothing about this vase that appeals to me. It’s pale yellow—not a bright eye-catching color. It’s not a bud vase. You can’t just drop a buttercup or a single rose in it and call it a day. No…if you use this vase for flowers, you have to “arrange” the flowers, and let me tell you - one of the gifts that I did not get is “arranging” flowers; so I’m sitting there staring at my phone trying to think of a nice way to say “Thank you for thinking of me, but I believe I’ll pass on the vase” when she sent me a picture of the bottom of the vase, and on the bottom of the vase, written in a handwriting that I recognize, it says “Mrs. Jim Ogilvie’s vase.” And the name changed everything!! Mrs. Jim Ogilvie was my great Aunt Annie. She was the kindest, sweetest, most gentle soul you would ever meet; and she was kind and gentle and sweet and sharp as a tack until the day she died at 98. I loved her! And I immediately texted back “YES!! I do want that vase! How much do you want for it?” My friend returned “Oh Mrs. Brown. It’s a gift. We just want you to have it.” And I do because the name changed everything. Two thousand years ago, God sent us a gift. Why? “For God so loved the world,” he just wanted us to have it. But the thing about this gift is that at first glance, it is not very appealing. The gift came wrapped in a flesh and blood baby, born in a cave doubling as a stable to an unwed teenage mother. He was raised in an obscure town called Nazareth where he apparently lived at home until he was thirty and started his career. When he did start his career, his friends and religious teachers tried to fling him off a cliff so he traveled the country side, followed by a bunch of rag-tag fishermen and other questionable characters, teaching about love and peace, turning the other cheek and washing each other’s feet! Really! He was ridiculed by the religious authorities, arrested, nailed to a cross where he died an excruciatingly painful and humiliating death between two thieves. Who wants a gift like that? But then we hear the name of the man. It’s Jesus!! Jesus!! And the name changes everything. Jesus – the name that can change chaos into calm, fear into peace, doubt into certainty. Jesus – the name that in itself is a prayer when there are no other words. Jesus! Who wants that gift? I do!! I want that gift and you do too! Jesus! – because there really is something about that name! And the name changes everything!