Sermon For Naming Ceremony

Called by Name: A Sermon for the Blessing of a New Life

There is something quietly profound about the act of naming. Before a child can speak, before she knows her own face in a mirror, before he has formed a single memory, a name is given. That name will be spoken over this person thousands of times. It will be written on school papers and birthday cards. It will be called across a yard at suppertime. It will appear on a marriage certificate and, one day, on a gravestone. A name is not a small thing. It is, in many ways, the beginning of a story.

Today we gather to mark that beginning. We gather as a community of faith to speak a blessing over a new life, to commit this child to God in prayer, and to remind ourselves and one another of something the Scriptures declare with great clarity: this child is already known by the One who made him. This child is already seen by the God who calls people by name.

That is where we begin. Not with our hopes for this child, as good and natural as those hopes are. We begin with what God has already said.

The First Text: Isaiah 43:1-7

Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 43. The prophet writes to a people in exile, a people who had every reason to wonder whether God had forgotten them. They had lost their land, their temple, their way of life. And into that grief, God speaks. Listen to how the passage opens.

"But now, this is what the Lord says, your Creator, Jacob, and the one who formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine." Isaiah 43:1, CSB.

Notice the structure of that single verse. God identifies himself first as Creator and as the one who formed Israel. This is not a distant deity making general announcements. This is the God who made these people, who shaped them, who knows them from the inside out. And then comes the declaration: I have called you by your name. You are mine.

The name here is not incidental. In the ancient world, to know someone's name was to know something essential about them. To call someone by name was an act of intimacy and authority. When God says, "I have called you by your name," he is saying: I know who you are. I have not confused you with anyone else. You are not a number in a crowd. You are known.

Verse 2 continues with one of the most honest and comforting promises in all of Scripture. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, and the flame will not burn you." Notice that God does not say if you pass through the waters. He says when. He does not promise that this child's life will be free of difficulty. He promises that in the difficulty, his presence will hold.

This is important for us to understand clearly today. We are not here to predict a smooth road for this child. We are not here to guarantee health, prosperity, or an easy path. We do not know what this life will hold. What we are here to do is to entrust this child to the God who does know, the God who has promised that his people will not be overwhelmed, the God who says in verse 5, "Do not fear, for I am with you."

Verse 7 closes the passage with a statement that gives us the deepest reason for this child's existence: "everyone who is called by my name and whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and whom I made." This child was not created by accident. This child was not formed by chance. According to the word of God, every human life is made by God and for God's glory. That is the foundation under everything we do today.

The Second Text: Luke 1:57-66

Now turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, beginning at verse 57. Here we find a scene that has remarkable resonance with what we are doing today. Elizabeth has given birth to a son, and the community has gathered around her. Verse 58 tells us that her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they rejoiced with her. A birth, even then, was a communal event. People gathered. People celebrated. People gave thanks.

Then comes the moment of naming. The community assumes the child will be named after his father, Zechariah. That was the custom. That was the expectation. But Elizabeth speaks up in verse 60: "No. He will be called John." And when Zechariah, who had been unable to speak since the angel's announcement, confirms the name in writing, his mouth is opened and he begins to praise God.

What is striking here is that the name John was not chosen by the parents out of family tradition or personal preference. It had been given by God through the angel Gabriel back in verse 13: "Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John." The name John means "the Lord is gracious." And the child who bore that name would grow up to be the forerunner of Jesus Christ, the one who would prepare the way for the Savior of the world.

The community's response in verse 66 is worth noting. The neighbors asked, "What then will this child become?" They sensed that something significant was happening. A name had been given. A life had begun. And they wondered what it would mean.

That is a natural question to ask at a moment like this one. What will this child become? But the text does not answer that question directly. What it does instead is point to God's faithfulness. Zechariah's song, which follows in verses 67 through 79, does not predict the specific details of John's life. It declares the character of the God into whose story this child has been born. It is a song about mercy, about redemption, about the God who keeps his promises across generations.

We would do well to follow that same pattern today.

The Central Claim

Here is what these two passages together declare: God knows this child by name, God is present with this child through every season of life, and this child has been made for God's glory. That is the theological ground on which we stand today.

We are not here to make promises we cannot keep. We are not here to speak words of prediction or guarantee. We are here to do something far more important. We are here to place this child before the living God, to ask for his blessing, and to commit ourselves as a community of faith to surround this family with prayer, love, and the witness of the gospel.

The Community's Role

There is one more thing the Luke passage shows us that deserves our attention. The naming of John did not happen in isolation. It happened in community. The neighbors were there. The relatives were there. They witnessed. They wondered. They carried the story forward. Verse 65 says that all these things were talked about throughout the hill country of Judea.

A child is not raised in a vacuum. A child is raised in relationship, in community, in the context of people who speak truth, model faithfulness, and point toward God. For those of us who are followers of Jesus, that means we bear a responsibility today. We are not merely spectators at a ceremony. We are witnesses. We are the community into which this child is being welcomed.

That means we commit to praying for this child by name. It means we commit to living in such a way that when this child grows old enough to ask questions about faith, about God, about what it means to follow Jesus, they will find in us imperfect but genuine examples of people who trusted him.

And for those of you who are here today who may not yet have made that commitment yourselves, who may be standing at the edge of faith rather than fully inside it, let me say this gently and directly. The same God who calls this child by name calls you by name. The same God who says "do not fear, for I am with you" says that to you. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the announcement that God has not left his people to face the waters alone. He entered the water himself. He walked through the fire. He went to the cross and rose from the dead so that everyone who trusts in him might be redeemed, might be called his own, might hear their name spoken by the God who made them.

If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, today is a good day to begin that conversation. Not because of the ceremony, but because the God who is being honored in this ceremony is real, and he is present, and he is gracious.

A Charge To The Family

To the parents and family of this child, the Scriptures offer you not a formula but a foundation. You cannot control every outcome. You cannot protect this child from every sorrow. But you can do what Zechariah and Elizabeth did. You can give this child a name that points toward God. You can raise this child in the community of faith. You can tell the story of God's faithfulness, generation to generation.

Deuteronomy 6 calls parents to speak of God's commands when they sit at home and when they walk along the road, when they lie down and when they rise up. That is not a burden. That is a gift. It is the gift of a life lived in the awareness that we are known, that we are loved, and that we belong to the God who made us.

A Closing Word

A name is a beginning. It is not the whole story. The whole story belongs to God. And the God who spoke to a people in exile and said "do not fear, I have called you by your name, you are mine," that same God speaks over this child today.

May this child grow to know the One who knew them first. May this family be strengthened by the community that surrounds them. And may all of us leave this place more aware that we, too, are called by name, held by grace, and made for the glory of God.

Let us pray.

Sources Consulted

Motyer, J. Alec. The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary. InterVarsity Press, 1993.

Oswalt, John N. The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 1998.

Bock, Darrell L. Luke 1:1-9:50. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 1994.

Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1997.

Goldingay, John. Isaiah 40-55: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary. International Critical Commentary. T and T Clark, 2014.

The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.