The Name of Jesus

What happens when you speak the name?  I suppose that depends on why you are speaking it, and the attitude of your heart. 

Several years ago, I stood between people speaking the name of Jesus for contrasting reasons. 

My husband’s family’s business, which manufactured drip irrigation, had begun in a converted greenhouse behind his parents’ home.  At a point where the business was moving to a new location, one machine was still in the structure behind his parents’ house, and one employee was working there alone with the shift foreman coming there to check on him during the evening.  The guy, for reasons beyond understanding, reach up under the guard meant to prevent entrapment and got his hand caught in the mechanism of the machine.  My mother-in-law was home alone and heard him crying out for help.  She called my husband, and as it happened, my mother was at our home that evening and could stay with our children, so that I could go with my husband. 

My husband called the factory manager who knew how to release the machine, but until he and the ambulance arrived, the man’s hand remain wedged in the machine.  I was standing behind him, and my mother-in-law was behind me.  The man repeatedly said, “Jesus, Jesus!”  He was NOT calling out for help from Jesus.  He was “using” the name.  My mother-in-law was whispering “Jesus, Jesus” prayerfully.  The contrast was striking.

I too have called out “the name” in such distress that I could not even pronounce it clearly.  Almost 20 years ago, I was awakened from a sound sleep having an allergic reaction to a prescribed medication I had taken at bedtime.  I had been on the medication for months without any difficulty.  But, this night my entire body turned bright red, and I had difficulty breathing.  I thought my mouth was dry and asked my husband to get me a drink of water.  Actually, my tongue had swollen and was filling my whole mouth.  Eventually it protruded from my mouth, and my husband and a first responder said it was blue.  

At some point, I realized just how much trouble I was in, and unable to speak clearly, I cried out, “Hep me. Theethus!”

An EMT arrived and prepared to put in an IV, but before the needle was in, I felt my tongue shrink back to its proper size.  At that point, I had been given some oxygen, but no other treatment.  My only explanation for the abrupt turn around in my condition is that Jesus understood my appeal even though I couldn’t speak his name clearly.

A Christian friend, who lived across the street from us at the time, happened to be up late and saw the ambulance at our house.  She called and asked my husband what was going on.  She told me later, that she got right down on the floor before the Lord and pleaded with him for my life.  My husband had awakened our son, who was a teen at the time, so that he could open the door for the emergency workers and direct them upstairs.  Our son later said that he had been praying as he waited and paced.

What happens when we speak the name of Jesus?

The name is sweet to the ear of a believer.

The name brings comfort.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in the believer’s ear.

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds. And drives away his fear.

What happens when we call upon the name of Jesus?

The name is powerful!

Philippians 2:10-11  That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.