"Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it." [Revelation 2:17]
At the last, when everything is made new, the same One who first called us into the circle of God's love will call to us again, by a new name, and we will somehow know who we really are.
It's a beautiful promise and a powerful image, but it's also a strange one, to be honest. Here in the second chapter of what we call The Book of Revelation, we hear the words of the risen Jesus in a vision that John of Patmos had, and he's speaking to an ancient congregation of Christians in the city of Pergamum. He encourages them to hold fast in the face of evil and to respond with their witness of love and truth (to "overcome" doesn't mean to win in a fist fight, but has the feel of when Paul says in Romans, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."). And for those who do overcome and endure in the face of the Empire's rottenness, the living Christ says, "I will give a white stone" on which a new name is written, apparently unique to each individual recipient. It's a mysterious sort of promise, and yet there is something familiar about this sort of thing. God is always calling people by new names in the Bible, and somehow when God calls you by your new name and new identity, you are more fully yourself than you had ever been before.
Going back to the very first book of the Bible, there is God calling to old, worn-out Abram and his only slightly-younger wife Sarai. They have no children and have given up on the hope of ever hearing the sound of their own baby's laughter and cooing in their tent, and then out of nowhere, God calls to Abram--a call that changes his life forever. And along the way as Abram journeys where God leads, God gives him a new name, as well as one for his wife. They may not seem like dramatic changes (his new sobriquet is "Abraham" and Sarai's is "Sarah"), but they indicate a change of identity and a restoration of hope. Newly renamed Abraham and Sarah do have a child, and the story of Israel flows forth from his family line. Not only does God call to the elderly couple, but God calls them by new names--and they step into the roles they were meant for.
It happens again with Abraham's grandson, Jacob, whose given name means something like "usurper," or "supplanter," or "Conniving schemer who takes other peoples' stuff" (a loose but accurate translation). Jake spends most of his young adulthood swindling people, including his brother Esau, his dear old dad Isaac, and his Uncle Laban. He makes a habit out of bamboozling and tricking people, getting what he can from them, and then running away when it all goes sour. And by the time he's burned every bridge he had and has no choice but to try and go back toward his family homestead and hope his brother isn't still out for revenge, God meets Jacob in the dark by a stream of water one night. And there, after a strange wrestling match in the night, God not only punches Jacob in the hip socket but also gives him a new name: "Israel." The new name means something like "wrestles with God" but also calls forth a new identity: he doesn't have to be scheming old Jacob anymore, but can be a new person. God calls him by a new name, and in a sense, he is now more fully himself than he ever was, and yet is a whole new person.
We could rattle off plenty of other stories like this, from Simon the fisherman who is given a new name, "Peter," the "Rock" among Jesus' disciples, to Saul the persecutor of the early church, who starts going by his Roman name Paul after the risen Jesus meets him on the road and calls him into a new life following him. And surely there are more stories like that to be told, both in the Bible and in the centuries since. But what I notice all along is how God's action to call us by a new name is somehow something new and creative, and yet also consistent with who we really are most deeply.
So when the last book of the Bible now suggests that one day Jesus will call us each by new names, it really isn't so surprising. This is what God does, after all. God, who knows us yet more deeply even than our parents or family members who named us, calls us by a new name, and suddenly we realize who we really were all along. And when that happens, the new name and new identity aren't something to be afraid of, and certainly not ashamed of, but something to be celebrated and received as gifts of grace. That's the promise we have as we glimpse the new creation God has in mind here in the book of Revelation.
I wonder, then, what it might look like for us to be open to those kinds of new names and new identities that God might be calling forth right now. Someone you know who has never been able to shake their old reputation or their old habits might be hearing God call them into a new start, and you might have the chance either to encourage and cheer them on... or to let their efforts wither on the vine. Someone might be struggling with the Big Question of "Who am I?" and maybe finally comes to the conclusion that they're not who or what everybody else has always told them they had to be, but find they are more fully alive breaking out of the old molds, identities, and names that had been foisted on them (Jacob knows a thing or two about that, too). Maybe someone you know is finally ready to step out into the light fully owning the identity God has given them, and you have the power either to honor their bravery, or to belittle them, as they do. You and I might just be standing beside a Sarai or a Simon who are just waiting to be called by their new name. And who knows--it might even be that God works through you to speak it to them.
One day when Jesus hands you that little white stone we hear about here in Revelation, you'll look at it and somehow know the name on it is who you have been all along, even if you never knew it before. What if right now we kept our eyes open for moments like that around us today?
Lord Jesus, open the ears of our spirits for the moment when you call us by our new names--and let us encourage the people around us whom you are already calling by theirs, too.
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