One of the unusual privileges I have is that of officiating at funerals. Sometimes I have known the deceased person quite well. Other times, I know little or nothing about them. Whichever of these is true, I make a point of listening to family memories so that I have a richer understanding of their life.
It is important to me to offer a faithful presentation of the person we are committing to God’s care. The last thing I would want is for people to walk away from the service wondering whether they had been at the right funeral because the person was unrecognisable from the words spoken in their memory.
One critical thing about taking a funeral is, of course, getting the person’s name right. It is often the case that family and friends have different names for the deceased. In life, I try to call people by the names they prefer (some people are relaxed about it, but for others there’s a world of difference between David and Dave, Susan and Sue etc). It is even more important to get it right in death. Sometimes the official paperwork is decidedly unhelpful here – consider the situation where everyone has known the person as Mavis, but her legal name was Geraldine Margaret; it would be easy for me to get it wrong!
Thankfully, God knows us all exactly as we are. He sees the man who was given the name Scott Albert and who always introduced himself as Scott, though his siblings called him Bertie, his mates called him “Handles” (because he had big ears) and his wife (alone) called him simply “S.” God knows the man in all those relationships – the man who indulged his siblings, who allowed his loyalty to his friends to override the pain of the insult, and who was delighted to share a uniquely tender relationship with his wife. God knows us all intimately, in all the dimensions of our complex lives.
Jesus, the Son of God living on earth, famously gave one of his disciples a new name, saying, “You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas,” (which, when translated is Peter). It’s quite funny to think that Peter means “rock” when we consider that he was anything but firm in his faith – one minute he recognised Jesus as the Messiah, the next he was telling Jesus he was wrong; another time he walked confidently on the water to meet Jesus, then, distracted and sinking, began to scream for his life; and lastly, having boldly declared that he would die for Jesus, we find him only a few minutes later fearfully telling a servant girl that he didn’t even know Jesus. Maybe the nickname “Rocky” was a way that Jesus could gently remind Peter throughout his life that he was truly known and truly loved.
Take comfort that God not only knows your name, but everything about you, and he still loves you with a love stronger than death.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay