St Mary Magdalene,Sandringham

Christmas Eve 2000

'What's in a name?' asked Shakespeare's Juliet. Well, quite a lot in my view. For me, names and their meanings have always been a source of fascination.

Take the name 'Sandringham', for example. The ending 'ham' is an old English term for village, and of course that's exactly what Sandringham remains. But the word 'ham' also carries the sense of a place where we feel safe and settled. Somewhere we might call home.

Unpacking the rest of the meaning of 'Sandringham' is relatively easy. The second part of the name - 'Dring' - comes from the name 'Dersing' which is a nearby village and perhaps was once the name of an important person who lived there. Taken together, we can say it signifies 'a safe sandy place of Dersing's people'.

That sounds, and indeed is, a good place to be on Christmas Eve - especially in this ancient church of St. Mary Magdalene. Today, as for many centuries, this remains a place of worship and prayer. Prayer is offered here daily for the peace of the nations and also for the Queen and the Royal Family.

But it is not just place names that are rich in meaning and resonance. The same is true for people as well. Take my name: 'George'. It comes from the Greek - Giorgos -- which means 'farmer'. Though I have to confess that I am so thoroughly urbanised that I probably wouldn't be much use to a busy farmer around here!

Nevertheless, people's names can be significant. In the Bible, for instance, names are not mere tags, not just something pinned to the surface of an individual. They can also provide an insight into the person and their character.

I believe that the name of one of the children from the Sunday school here today is Hannah; and I understand, Hannah, that it will be your 10th birthday next week, on New Year's Eve. Your name, in Hebrew, means 'a gift from God'. And I'm sure that from the day of your birth, your parents and friends have treasured you as just that -- a real gift from God.

At Christmas, of course, it is natural for us to remember the greatest of all God's gifts to our world - his son, our saviour, Jesus Christ, born two thousand years ago in the town of Bethlehem.

And that name, Bethlehem, has a meaning too. It means 'the House of Bread'. That is a wonderfully appropriate name for the place where Jesus was born, because he was to say of himself: 'I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger'. So Bethlehem is indeed the 'House of Bread', the place where God gave to the world the One who meets our deepest hunger. How sad, then, that in this of all years the traditional Bethlehem celebrations to mark the coming of the Prince of Peace should have been cancelled amid the unrest and violence that continue to scar the Holy Land. So, names are important and I regret that today we perhaps don't pay as much attention to their significance as we should.

Years ago I heard of a man doing a survey in a run down district of Glasgow. He knocked on the door of a flat and asked how many people lived there. The lady replied: 'Well, there's Willie and Tom and Margaret...' The Census man interrupted: 'Missus' he said, 'I'm not interested in names, I'm only interested in numbers!' 'Well,' she said, 'they may be only numbers to you but they are people to me. Now where was I? There's Hughie and Tina and Betty...' And so she continued with her cherished roll call.

You see, names declare that we are persons, real people. Our names speak of the identity and value of each one of us. They were given to us by others who loved us - our parents. So our names don't refer to us as disconnected, isolated individuals. On the contrary, they bind us in love to our families and speak of our relationship to them, and to all who come to know us. So our names express affection, belonging and hope. Frankly, for families and for any type of real relationship, numbers simply will not do.

Of course, there are times when a number is useful for the sake of speed and efficiency. I can still recall my RAF number - '2716995, Sir!' But we never use numbers when families gather, when friends meet, when communities are being built.

The drift away from close knit communities where we know one another well, to larger more anonymous and more random associations of people is well documented. At the start of the Industrial Revolution it became the practice to talk of 'hands' - to do the work. As society developed we became 'heads'- to be counted. Now we are all numbers with our own account numbers, National Insurance Numbers, credit card numbers, passport numbers and so on. Sometimes it feels that without a number we hardly exist.

Of course we can't simply put the clock back. And I am not suggesting a return to some supposed rural paradise! But we can and must guard against mere numbers becoming more important than the people, relationships and communities whose reality they hide.

And Christmas speaks directly to a feeling that people don't matter anymore; that nothing is of ultimate value. Its message is: 'You matter to God! You are known by him and he has shown his love by coming to us all in the form of Jesus, born of Mary.'

So our response to the message of Christmas should be one of great joy- if God knows and loves us personally then that is something to celebrate.

But it should also be a response of great humility. Earlier I mentioned Bethlehem - the House of Bread. If you have ever been to the old Basilica in Bethlehem you will surely remember that you cannot enter it without having to stoop. The Crusader doorway -- built to stop soldiers riding in on horseback - makes it impossible, even for pedestrians, to enter without bending low.

In the coming of Jesus God has stooped to meet us. In response we too need to stoop and have the humility to receive all that God gives us through the child who was born at Bethlehem; the humility to stoop and hear God call us by name.

But the best name of all I have kept till last. In the Christmas story the angel says to Mary: 'You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.' The very name of Jesus refers to God's gift of salvation - God's deliverance of us from all that binds and distorts us, and his shaping of us into all that we can be.

It is a long way and a long time from that birth in Bethlehem to this village in the year 2000. But in the name of Jesus Christ time and place are transformed. Wherever and whoever we are, he calls us by name too. And in doing so, he invites us to journey with him - through this life and into the next.

What's in a name? A great deal indeed!

A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS