December 31st, 2006

This Sunday we celebrated Jesus' name. When Pastor Dayle googled “names for Jesus”… there were 145 on the google list. She asked:

How is it possible to live up to such a name and to such a high calling? I think it happens in community. It happens when we all gather on a Sunday and lift our corporate voices in song, liturgy and prayer. It happens when we pray for the sick. It happens when we gather around the bed of the dying. The way Creator has rallied and supported Bethany and the Hartung family is the purest sense of community.

Pastor Dayle talked about this being bigger than Creator and mentioned the effect we have had on the community and state.

It made me think not only of the name of Jesus but the names of God. Meher Baba created a universal prayer that used different names for God:

O Parvardigar, the Preserver and Protector of All,
You are without Beginning and without End,
Non-dual, beyond comparison, and none can measure You.
You are without colour, without expression, without form and without attributes.
You are unlimited and unfathomable, beyond imagination and conception, eternal and imperishable.
You are indivisible, and none can see You but with eyes Divine.
You always were, You always are, and You always will be.
You are everywhere; You are in everything;
and You are also beyond everywhere and beyond everything.
You are in the firmament and in the depths.
You are manifest and unmanifest on all planes and beyond all planes;
You are in the three worlds and also beyond the three worlds.
You are imperceptible and independent.
You are the Creator, the Lord of Lords, the Knower of all minds and hearts;
You are Omnipotent and Omnipresent.
You are Knowledge Infinite, Power Infinite and Bliss Infinite.
You are the Ocean of Knowledge, All-knowing, Infinitely-knowing,
the Knower of the past, the present, and the future;
and You are Knowledge itself.
You are All-merciful and eternally benevolent.
You are the Soul of souls, the One with infinite attributes.
You are the Trinity of Truth, Knowledge and Bliss;
You are the Source of Truth, the Ocean of Love.
You are the Ancient One, the Highest of the High;
You are Prabhu and Parameshwar;
You are the Beyond-God and the Beyond-Beyond-God also;
You are Parabrahma, Paramatma, Allah, Elahi, Yezdan, Ahuramazda, God Almighty and God the Beloved.
You are named Ezad: the only One worthy of worship

Here is what those names mean:

Parvardigar: The Preserver or Sustainer - Sufi
Prabhu: The Lord (God). Vishnu. Literally, master, lord, king. A name applied to God. - Sanskrit.
Parameshwar (also Parameshwara): a Hindu concept that literally means the Supreme God. - Sanskrit
Parabrahma: Supreme Spirit; God in the Beyond Beyond state - Vedanta.
Elahi (pronounded with a long "a") is Aramaic and means "My God." It is considered likely that this is the actual word used by Jesus on the cross.
Yezdan (also Yazdan): Almighty God. - Zoroastrian
Ahura Mazda Name of God's attribute of Life and Wisdom.
Ezad (also Yazad): The one God, the only one worthy of worship. - Avestan.

There are so many names for God. There is a power to the "non dual" attribute in the prayer above but I know many worship Shiva, God of Destruction, in their pursuit of God. I was fascinated by a God pursuit associated with the name Abraxas that I read in Hermann Hesse's Demian:

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas".

The names and attributes of God in the New Testament are associated with Jesus. They are quite different from Old Testament attributes.

What's in God's name is locked in with how we worship and how we preceive this world.

There are other names I want to know more about and I look forward to the exploration.