Good News for the countryside: Names are important, but what’s in a name?
Every fortnight people from a farming background, or who have a heart for the countryside in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, offer a personal reflection on faith and rural life. They hope that you will be encouraged by it.
It’s unusual to get excited about a television programme, but a few weeks ago I must confess to becoming a little excited when I heard that there was going to be a new series of Channel 5’s ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.
I’m old enough to remember when the books by James Herriot were first published. I loved his stories as a Yorkshire vet, the laugh-out-loud moments when he met some of the farming characters, or the the antics of his boss, Siegfried Farnon, and his mischievous brother Tristian – I’ve read all the books.
They tell the story of those small family farms, the hard work, and at times the struggle to make ends meet. Stories of milking a small number of cows by hand in a byre, cows that were all known by name, Bluebell, Blossom, Buttercup, Daisy. They were much more than just animals, but part of the farm family. How different from today when dairy farms have hundreds of cows all with an ear tag number, and not many, if any I suspect, have a pet name.
Today in many places we too are no longer known by our name - identified by a reference number, or some other impersonal piece of information to confirm who we are. How wonderful then, that we are told that the God of creation, knows each one of us by name.
In Isaiah 43:1, we read, “‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’” What a great comfort and assurance that we are not anonymous, or unnoticed by God, but known to Him by name.
Throughout the Bible we are reminded of the importance of the name of God. The Book of Proverbs refers to Him in chapter 18 verse 10, as “a fortified tower”. God’s name speaks of His power, His character, and His attributes, such as love, mercy, and strength. The tower being a place of safety and refuge from sin and judgement for those who put their trust in Him.
It’s in the New Testament that we discover that the tower is not a place, but a person - the Lord Jesus Christ. In a dream, Joseph is told that Mary, “‘…will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’” (Mathew 1:21).
This was the message the apostles preached - that salvation, safety, recuse, deliverance from sin, is found only in the name of Jesus. Not in church, creed, or confession, but only in Christ, for ‘“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved’” (Acts 4:12). The Bible also tells us that at the very end of time, when He returns “…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10).
It is a wonderful feeling to know that you are known by God, by name. And how precious it is to know the name of Jesus as your Saviour and Lord of your life. Young or old, is that true for you today? John Newton sums it up so beautifully in one of my favourite hymns, when he writes, ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!/It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds/And drives away his fear.’
Robin Fairbairn is part-time ministry co-ordinator with Portavogie Presbyterian Church in the Ards Peninsula in County Down and also works as ministry development officer with The Good Book Company. He lives in the country and has been farming every Saturday for more years than he cares to admit. If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.