Change your name, and fool the Angel of Death
Friends,
As we head into a new year, two excerpts from things I’ve been working on are below: one from a recent sermon and one from an article published today commemorating the Feast of the Holy Name.
In other news, New Years Bingo returns this year to the Jordan family. Below are some almost finalized versions of our boards for 2022.
If you would like to join in, feel free to use the blank PDF linked below to create your own set of 25 (manageable but still stretching) goals for 2022.
Pro tips: (1) be sure to fill a number of spaces with things that will most likely happen this year unless you die, (2) stretch for a few goals, and (3) aim for a number of other achievable and enriching options.
Before we get to the excerpts, I do feel the need to share my greatest artistic endeavor of 2021.
Behold, the Christmas ninja cookie.
That’s all.
Excerpt 1: Change your name, and fool the Angel of Death
Every year on the first of January two calendars collide: while the Gregorian calendar resets and we mark the beginning of a “new year,” Christians around the world celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name.
Ira Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life, shares a family story about his grandmother who became ill at the age of 32. She was hospitalized for months, and doctors told her family that she was on the verge of death. A series of treatments were attempted, but nothing was working.
Her family decided, when all else failed, that they would try one more thing. They called for a Rabbi. When the Rabbi arrived, he performed a name-changing ceremony right there in the hospital room.
Curious about the whole situation, several family members asked why the Rabbi would do such a thing.
It turns out that the Rabbi changed her name so that when the Angel of Death came, he wouldn’t know who she was. Ira’s grandmother changed her name to fool the Angel of Death.
And it worked. She survived, got well, changed her name back to what it was before, and lived to the age of 87.
Click below to read more from my article published today.
God’s Name and Ours – Covenant
By Jon Jordan ra Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life, shares a family story about his grandmother who became ill at the age of 32. She was hospitalized for months, and doctors told her family t…
Excerpt 2: Who do you think you are?
This question is often asked in a way that is rude, abrasive, and unsettling.
But the question itself is not a bad one.
A story written when Jesus was a teenager took the ancient world by storm, and has actually shaped our own in significant ways. It shows us that there are at least two unhealthy ways of answering the question Who do you think you are?
So what does the story of Narcissus and Echo have to do with John the Baptist and our own continued celebration of Christmas?
Click here to watch to my recent (12 minute) sermon on this question, or click here to read a condensed letter version I sent last week to Coram Deo Academy families.