The Death Of A Name

I sat huddled over the marriage license, grasping the pen and trying to do as the pastor directed us. “Sign here, where it says Groom.”

I watched him confidently scrawl out his initials, “MAD.” His simple but clear signature for years.

“Your turn,” as the pastor underlined the word “Bride” with his finger and looked up at me.

I moved my hand over the empty space and paused. I didn’t know my name.

Lankford? Dubinsky? How do I sign?

I was breaking ties with a family I’d grown up in, and creating a new life. A new name. Someone else’s. Certainly not mine, but I was to claim it.

The world will no longer know me as the woman I’ve been for the entirety of my life. The person who meets me tomorrow will meet Lauren Nicole Dubinsky. A woman I’m still getting to know myself.

Bride.

What a beautiful, new picture. The newness of her husband’s name, sloughing off the past.

And when the past comes, he stands in her defense: “I understand. But now she bears my name. She chose.”

She chose.

If you have chosen Jesus, you have chosen to be His bride.

Do you act like it? Have you taken your new name?

It takes faith, you know. To trust that your old friends will find you by your new name. To let go of that part of your identity. To play with the memories in your head that were tied to your last name.

It’s unsettling. Humbling. There is great joy, but there is a death that takes place, and pain is always present in death, no matter how slight.

Names are anchors. They remain when we change. They define who we are. They define our family. Our past.

But a bride?

A bride’s name defines her future.

A bride is won by a lover. He chases her, he sacrifices for her, he accepts her. Despite all her flaws, her failings, her mistakes. He sees her. He knows her better than the world knows her. To give up her name to just anyone, how dare they ask! But for a man who has laid down his life for her? For a man who knows her so well that no names are needed? Yes. I am yours. Together, we are whole. Together, we are new.

And Jesus says, “Be my bride. Take my name.”

Jesus did not come to improve the people. He did not come to fix family ties. He did not come to empower men, nor to empower women. He did not come to settle family disputes.

Jesus came for a new family; for new names.

Even in his birth, he broke the laws of nature to be conceived not by a man, but by God. An extreme circumstance that screams out, “God is my father. I am the son of God; my family is His.”

When Jesus met Simon, He looked at him and said, “You are Simon, the son of John. You will be called Peter.” (John 1:42) In a moment, an acknowledgement of Simon’s character, his family, his past…and then a new name. With a new meaning.

When friends told Jesus that his family was waiting for him, Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and brothers?” And with a swift knife to the heart of tradition, he pointed at his disciples and said, “these are my mother and brothers and sisters. For they do the will of my Father.” (Matthew 12:48)

You have a birth name. And I do not dare devalue it.

But you have another name. Bride of Christ. Child of God.

And I ask you to carry it proudly. Obediently. Respectfully. Dutifully. Gracefully. Confidently. Faithfully. Joyously. Lovingly.

Just as I bear my new name as a bride.