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The name of Jesus: January 1, 2008

Currents in Theology and Mission, Oct, 2007 by Joy L. McDonald Coltvet

When babies are adopted, new parents make decisions about how their children will be named. What about the new name will reflect their new family and cultural identity, and what will reflect the child's own biological roots? My friend named her new daughter, adopted from China, first after her grandmother and second with a Chinese name.

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Other friends hosted a Korean international student for one year, and although she came to the U.S. as a Christian she had never been baptized. As the date for her baptism grew close, she asked my husband and me to be her godparents. We were very honored. I was even more touched when Hye Jung Hwang said to me that night that she would be taking a new baptismal name. Hye Jung "Joy" Hwang became my goddaughter at the Easter Vigil in 2005. She has since returned to Korea, but I am so blessed by that gesture of love and friendship. It is not common in our Lutheran practice to take a baptismal name, and we hadn't encouraged her to do so, but Hye Jung Joy knew the blessed power of naming, and I'm so grateful to her for sharing that gift with me. JLMC

24. Sundays and Seasons: Year A 2008 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2007), 64.

25. http://www.negrospirituals.com/newssong/changed_mah_name.htm.>