I went to my dad's gravesite for the first time today.
I mean, I was at the cemetery with my brother five months ago, just days after the fire, picking out the plot + stone but they couldn't install it until the ground thawed. And then there was the nagging fear of going, like the hesitation before stepping onto a stage.
I feared the vulnerability. I feared the exposure. But most of all, I feared seeing his name written in stone.
There was something surreal about walking through the cemetery and seeing thousands of names, then suddenly seeing the name of someone I love. No, not just a name; an essence, a person.
Names aren't just letters and sounds that we ascribe to an individual to identify them; they are an identity.
There is a difference.
In scripture names are given special significance. People in the Bible often named their children after something they wanted them to become or embody; there are even several instances where adults changed their name after a life-altering event in order to better suit their new sense of self. Saul changed his name to Paul after meeting God on the road to Damascus. Naomi changed her name to Mara after losing her husband, children, and home. Heck, even Jesus was specifically named by God, meaning "God saves".
The point is, scripture teaches us that names matter.
And there is nothing more final than a name written in rock. My dad's name carved into that death stone.
Irrevocable. Absolute. Final.
But the name on the tombstone, aptly meaning "God's peace", is not my dad's true name.
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
You see, my dad has gone through the ultimate life-altering event, the life-after event, and on the other side of it he has been given a new name by Christ, permanently carved into a white stone of life.
In this name is his perfected sense of self, the essence of who he was created by God to be. And don't be fooled- the name on the stone of death is just the shedding of a temporary identity for the eternal identity on the stone of life.
My dad has discovered who he is. And who he is is eternal. While I weep at the finality of his name written on an earthly stone, he is rejoicing at the finality of his name written on a heavenly one. This place, this ground, was never meant to last but we are. So take comfort dear heart, that at the gates of forever Jesus is holding out his hand with your true name, your true identity, in him.