No other name

“The name Jesus underlines the real humanity of our Lord.” — William Barclay, Scottish Theologian

Just for a moment (or a year), I encourage you to hold the theological question and take up Jesus’ story as he lived it.

Along these lines, William Barclay spotted something noteworthy in the Gospels concerning how the writers remembered their subject.

In the Gospels [Jesus] is by far the commonest name of our Lord, for in them he is called by this simple name almost six hundred times. It is at first sight an astonishing fact that in the four Gospels the expression Jesus Christ occurs only four times, in Mark 1.1; Matt. 1.1; John 1.17; 17.3; and the expression Lord Jesus occurs only twice, and in both cases there is doubt about it. Luke 24:3 and Mark 16:19.

The Gospel writers appear to recognize and preserve by his name that humanity that qualifies Jesus’ experience.

I invite you to approach the human Jesus afresh, to visit Jesus’ experience as definitively human.