Can You Say His Name?

Have you ever noticed when you’re reading someone’s name in a newspaper, you tend to gloss over it, not taking the time to fully read its spelling? We’re often interested in only the gist of the story, not necessarily the details. We read enough to satisfy our curiosity and that’s about it.

When you’re introduced to someone for the first time, are you like me, oftentimes forgetting the person’s name in an effort to keep up with the conversation? It’s a rude thing to do, but a lot of people say they’re “not good with names.” When we’re reminded later of meeting the person, all we can do is equate a face with a conversational tidbit (“Oh, you mean the person with the dry cleaning business?”).

How often have we embarrassed ourselves when someone walks up to us, and we know we should know him, but we’re absolutely clueless to his name? We hope for enough conversational hints that something will trigger our memory before we’re faced with introducing our spouse, revealing our horrible lapse of recall.

How have you felt when someone you hoped would remember you - a boss, a prospective friend, your pastor - excuses himself and asks for your name? Or worse yet, ever had a “Hey, you!” caustically thrown your way? Don’t you just feel like rubbing your driver’s license in their face, bad picture and all?

Our names should be more than just a convenience for grabbing our attention. They reflect our identity, what we want people to know us by, and at least partially how we want people to remember us after we’ve left this earth. We like hearing our name spoken out loud. It makes us feel important, noticed, like we matter.

If our names are so important to us, how is it many Christians have such a hard time speaking the name “Jesus” in everyday conversation? A lot of us can be perfectly comfortable discussing what Christian conduct should be like, sharing Bible verses or even expounding on a certain amount of theology. We’ll practically gag, however, saying the name Jesus, as if we’re choking on dry bread crumbs.

Why is that?