The Noontimes

Psalm 91: Knowing God’s Name

Friday, November 22, 2024

A number of years ago I listened to a lecture about the importance of calling on the name of God, the name of Jesus, when we are in peril or distress, and verse 14 of this Psalm featured in that study.

Whoever clings to me I will deliver; whoever knows my name I will set on high. 

We are named at birth, with our parents giving great thought to the selection of that name. We look up the meaning of our names. We set aside resources and petition entrance into a golf, swim or tennis club we hope to join. We frown or smile when we see labels on our clothing. The cars we drive, the kitchen appliances we buy, the stores whose bags we carry to a neighborhood event with a casserole dish – all of these bear names that we give consideration. What is the thought we put into the church we join or walk away from? What do believe to be our spiritual name; what is our own label? Who is our God? Do we call to this God for help? And how does God call us?

The Hebrew people, and later the Israelite tribes, did not utter God’s name believing it to be too sacred to pronounce aloud, and so they represented it with the four letters YHWH for Yahweh. Jesus turned his Jewish world upside down when he dared to say that he was the fulfillment of their hope for a Messiah, come to live among them. He angered the Jewish authorities when he dared to heal on the Sabbath, a day that was meant for complete rest from work and for worship of the God who had saved them countless times. We can see how and why his actions and words were revolutionary.  From John 17:6: I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.   After the resurrection, the full impact of this is described in Acts 3:15-16 when Peter explains that he is able to heal a crippled beggar merely by invoking the name of Jesus: The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.  And by faith in his name, this man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong, and the faith that comes through it has given him this perfect health, in the presence of all of you. 

This is a powerful message to Peter’s audience, and it is a powerful message to us today. It reminds us that we have nothing to fear in that we know God’s name and invoke it just as Peter did. It reminds us that when we are in distress of any kind that we are to call out to our God and ask for healing for ourselves and others in God’s name, in the name of Jesus the Christ.

Image from: https://www.christianlearning.com/yahweh-the-personal-name-of-the-god-of-israel/