Colossians 4:11 Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me.
I have really enjoyed reading Colossians this week. My favorite section, by far, was in chapter 2 where Paul writes about Jesus and who He is. It is a beautiful description of our Savior and King. When I think about the name of Jesus, I think about my God. I think about all He has done and all that He is still doing. I think about His power and His infinite greatness. When I was reading today, this verse struck me funny. Here is some other guy named Jesus doing the work of, er… Jesus. Awkward. I wonder if he went by Justus because he got tired of people asking him if he was THE Jesus.
That’s when the thought crossed my mind. Jesus was just an ordinary name. It was common. I don’t know a lot of dudes named Jesus around here, so I don’t think much about it. It would be like growing up and finding out you share a name with a celebrity. Your parents wouldn’t have known it, but that’s how it turned out. So Jesus was a regular old name. How would Jesus’ (Justus’) parents known? But here he was, a servant of a guy whom he shared a name with.
Then I got to thinking about the songs we sing that are about the “name” of Jesus. Jesus, the most beautiful name I know. Or how about no sweeter name than the name of Jesus. I know that if I shared a name with the Savior that would just be weird to sing. (No sweeter name than the name of Brad… I don’t think so!) So why in the world to we sing about the name? We sing about the name because of the person behind the name. We really aren’t singing about a name are we? We are singing about our God. And in our minds, we draw the distinction between a dude name Jesus and our Savior named Jesus. As common as His name may have been in His time, He was the most uncommon man to ever walk this earth. It is for that reason that I life His NAME high.
Abundant Life 