Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)
At the beginning of a year we cherish the expectations of new things, plans, hopes for something better, and perhaps a new course for our lives – whether it be in terms of health, fitness, Bible study, prayer, or generally streamlining a routine to get things done. As the year progresses and the rhythm of life beats loudly in our ears with demands of people and claims on our time, we tend to forget the bigger picture, the idealistic plans for change that we might not even had shared with anyone.
It’s good to make plans. For me, it’s an inspiration that gives me energy to tackle things and do better than in the past. However, there is something “old” that lingers in my mind in these early days of January 2024 – gratitude for what already exists, what I already have, and what has already been done for me.
My name is written in heaven. I can vividly remember that my mother was fascinated with the Scribe of heaven. Her imagination of beautiful pens, beautiful books, and beautiful furniture coloured her picture – a living wooden desk that we can only dream of, a glorious, majestic angel with a golden stylus and a book big enough for the Kingdom administration of the God of the universe. There, she said, your name is written.
This is, of course, an emphasis on Malachi 3:16-18. I have quoted it so often in Pebble-pieces that surely everyone already knows it. However, I cannot get enough of the wonder-consequences of writing, heavenly writing, names being written, and the elevated status that flows from it.
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.
“On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. 18 And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
The Bible is a book of names. Entire chapters are dedicated to lists of names. In the ancient Hebrew civilization, descendants and ancestors had status and responsibilities, such as the Levites for Temple service. Since a Hebrew lineage was so important, you had to be able to prove it. (Ezra 2:62)
However, in the New Testament Jesus speaks to people whose names are never mentioned. They represent the masses of the poor, miserable, and oppressed who are never honoured with the recording of a name.
Jesus’ encounters with three women, conveying the core of the message of His ministry, are powerful and symbolic of the upliftment of women who, in that time, could claim no status. Their gender condemned them to a marginalized, predetermined role in society. The Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, and the woman suffering from a flow of blood had unexpected encounters with Jesus and life-changing conversations recorded for us – without their names.
The paralyzed man at Bethesda is unnamed. Similarly, we have no names for the government official’s son (John 4:46), the man with the unclean spirit (Mark 1:21, Luke 4:31), Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8:14), the leper (Matthew 8:1), the man with the withered hand (Matthew 12:9), the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5), the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11), and many more – the majority of the 26 healings by Jesus.
It’s as if Jesus wants to teach His disciples that names truly matter only in heaven. Even in success, when the world takes note of names, their success, when they are sent out with the Gospel and return to testify of healing and deliverance, is received with the words quoted at the beginning of this piece.
It’s as if Jesus is saying that the things valued in the community don’t matter to God. He looks in the books of God, the Book of the Lamb (Revelation 21:27). God doesn’t seek our names in the chronicles of the Jews, or the newspapers of our day, or the honour roll at the university, or the corporate promotion list, or the social merit list.
God writes it down Himself. He has His own honour roll of the most insignificant people who matter in His records – the Book of Life.
At the beginning of this year, I am glad my name is written. My first thought is of those who are not written, all for whom I have been praying for so long. I pray with new inspiration. I pray that the love of God pursues my family and friends with the grace and goodness that turns a life around and reveals truth.
In the Church of Jesus, we can also “succeed” with the wonders of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. (Luke 10:19)
However, it is the Truth that will set us free, not achievement or money or status or anything the world can offer, and not even what the earthly church may value.
On that same occasion, Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, exclaimed: “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight” (Luke 10:21).
In the power of the Holy Spirit, today I “tread” on the “snakes and scorpions” of lies, deception, false doctrines, prejudice, and preconceived ideas about Christianity, spiritual blindness, and lack of vision. I thank God for my name in heaven, and I pray the names of my unsaved family and friends into the golden bowl before the Throne of the Almighty (Revelation 5:8).
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32,33).
Hosanna – come save us now. Rejoice Pebblepal – your name is written.
But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. (Revelation 21:27)
| Sometime in the spring (Trinity Sunday was May 22 that year, 1929) Lewis came to believe in God, though not yet in Christ: You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him of whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation. (Surprised by Joy, Chapter 14) From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume I Compiled in Yours, Jack |
Pebbles of Perpetuity 