Musings

I concluded my last post with the following statement: “the next post offers some thoughts on how God became one of us in the person of Jesus, dwelt among us, for the purpose of restoring our breathing, restoring us (even, to re-story our lives), so that we might catch our breath again and be able to breath deeply – celebrating and giving praise to The One whose name we breathe.”

Perhaps before I get into that, it might be important to think about the relationship between the One Who Is, Who is Being itself, the One whose name is expressed by the action of breathing and Jesus, whom John proclaims as God becoming one of us (John 1:14) and Matthew expresses as God with us (Matthew 1:23).

I read somewhere of someone stating, that if this were true, that if God took on our humanity, that would be something indeed, utterly marvelous, but, alas, something like that cannot be true. I wonder, Why not?

Joan Osborne, in her song, “One of Us” wonders as well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDdOnl0bHO4).

But also, the early followers of Jesus, they came to that conclusion that Jesus became one of us, was one of us, based on what they witnessed.

Yesterday, a thought crossed my mind. If God is described in the Hebrew text as YHWH, and the Hebrew name for Jesus is Yeshua, what is the connection between the two? Is there something in the Hebrew name of the one we call Jesus of Nazareth?

There seems to be some similarity in the names – YHWH and Yeshua, especially if we might express Jesus’ Hebrew name phonetically (i.e., to breathe out his name) YeH- shu – WaH. It is apparent that there is a connection in that the meaning of Yeshua is “YHWH saves.”

Something that had once puzzled me in Matthew 1 is that when Joseph was sent a messenger (an angel) regarding Mary’s pregnancy (Matthew 1: 18-21), and the purpose of whom she would give birth to, and the name that was to be given him (Jesus (Yeshua)), we see Matthew expressing that this was the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel,” which Mathew translates for us as “God with us.”

What’s the connection, what does that mean?

Well, here’s my thought as I read Scripture. If the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ name Yeshua is declaring that “YHWH saves,” it seems that the way YHWH chooses to save is not by being far off, aloof, distant from us, but rather by being close to us, among us, with us (Immanuel), indeed, as so many of those who encountered Jesus realized, by becoming one of us, by becoming human, and as John expresses (John 1:14), “set his tent up among us” (see also Philippians 2:5ff).

Jesus/Yeshua is the action of God/YHWH’s love for humanity. Yeshua is the enactment of God/YHWH loving those whom God created – in seeking to set humanity free from our overt preoccupation with ourselves, God seeks to set us free, to set us free from what binds us, constrains us, enslaves us, so that we might breathe freely, to live life fully, to love unselfishly, to be compassionate, caring, giving – not at a distance, but up close and personal, by taking on our humanity, becoming human and walking and living among us.

God being human in Jesus is not merely a theological thought, a belief, but rather, it is an action of the One whose name is an action, an act of loving humanity/us so deeply that God chose to so identify with us that YHWH became one of us in Yeshua.

Thoughts in response?