What if, when Mary had the insurmountable task of naming the Savior, the Son of the Lord God in Heaven, the one and only perfect human to ever live, she fumbled a little. What if she called him Steam Harry? Pastors would bellow righteously, “Trust in the name of Steam Harry to deliver us from our sins, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!” Kids would wear bracelets asking philosophically, “What would Steam Harry do?” There would be a national debate about whether to allow time to pray to Steam Harry in the classroom.
It’s not likely that in Irael in that time period that Mary would name her child Steam Harry, besides the fact the Bible states that an angel appeared to Joseph and told Joseph that the Baby’s name would be Jesus. Although, if someone named Steam Harry suffered and died for all my sins I think I would probably respect him despite his name. Just a thought.
She should have named Her Xena.
Or, to really give one up for ambiguity, she could have named him Madison, Tyler, Taylor, Kelsey, Leslie, Chris, or Pat.
Steam Harry short for Steamboat Harry, of course. That Mary—not only a pregnant virgin, but prophetic, naming the Messiah (the man to change the world as the Jews knew it) after the technological advancement that would do the exact same thing in our time! All the other Jewish kids had “real” names like Ezra and David, names of historical importance, and thought Mary was crazy. They just didn’t know Steam Harry’s was of futuristic importance, was an analogy he would later fashion into one of those succinct, indelible parables for generation after generation to fail to grasp.