Scriptures
“So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name” (Acts 5:41)
Observation
The above passage is understood within the context of the testimony given by Peter and John. First, they gave testimony to the Lord by healing the crippled beggar (Acts 3:6ff). This was followed by their arrest and the warning they received from the Sanhedrin (4:5-22). But the apostles, believing that they had to obey God rather than men, continued to teach and preach in the name of Christ, and were once more arrested (Acts 5:17), miraculously released (Acts 5:19), rearrested and flogged (Acts 5:40). The flogging they received was the “forty-stripes save one” that was also given to St. Paul five times (2 Corinthians 11:24). They “rejoiced” not because of any sado-masochism but because of the macharisms that Jesus himself has pronounced over them. “Blessed are you when you are persecuted … because of me.” (Matthew 5:11).
They suffered dishonor “for the sake of the Name”. The expression “the Name” for the Jew is an indirect way of referring to God. God is “HaShem”. Even now, Jews call him that. In the Acts of the Apostles, we find the word associated with God, from Old Testament quotations (Acts 2:21;15:14.17.) In Acts 2:21, phrase “name of the Lord” is part of a citation from Joel 3:1-5 and refers to God whose faithful will be saved on the day of the Lord. In Acts 15:14, the expression “a people for His name” echoes Exodus 19:5
If you obey me completely and keep my covenant,
you will be my treasured possession among all peoples,
though all the earth is mine.
You will be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.
In a lot of texts from Acts, however, “the Name” (HaShem) is applied to Christ in the following expressions
- in the name of Jesus Christ
- 2:28;3:6;4:10;8:16;10:48;16:18
- the name of Jesus Christ
- 8:12; 4:10. 18; 9:27
- in the name of the Lord
- 9:29
- in the name of the Lord Jesus
- 13:7; 19:5
- in the name of Jesus
- 4:18; 9:27
- his,my referring to Jesus Christ
- 3:16; 4:7.12.17.18; 9:15.15.16.21
It must be added that the usage for “the Name” becomes more Christological if we note that the genitive form here is not possessive but explicative (“the Name” that is “Jesus Christ”).
Application
The rejoicing of the apostles reminds one of many passages in the letters of St. Paul about the sufferings of an apostle for the sake of the Lord. In fact, for Paul, it was the chief characteristic of the true apostle, that is to be identified with the Lord in his suffering. This is not only with the aposles, but with all the baptized who were marked by the cross of Christ at the moment of their baptism. All the baptized are called to follow the Lord even to the cross.
“The Name” for the Catholic is of course, “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19), but in a special way — as we acknowledge it in the liturgy — it is also the “Name above every other Name” (Phil. 6:11), the Most Holy Name of Jesus. This is also another proof of the acknowledgment of the divinity of Christ by the apostles.
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, You have said, ‘Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you’;
mercifully attend to our supplications, and grant us the grace of Your most divine love,
that we may love You with all our hearts, and in all our words and actions, and never cease to praise You.
Make us, O Lord, to have a perpetual fear and love of Your holy name,
for You never fail to govern those whom You establish in Your love.
You, Who live and reign forever and ever. Amen
Lectio Divina 