The Sunday Sermonette – Names Lost.

She was “the safest ship afloat” and “unsinkable.” Still, on her maiden voyage, she hit an iceberg and sank. The RMS Titanic? No, the SS Hans Hedtoft, owned by the Royal Greenland Trading Company. She was a midsize cargo-passenger liner that left Copenhagen on January 7, 1959, with ninety-five passengers and crew bound for Julianchaab, Greenland.

On her return voyage, her radio operator sent an SOS stating that the ship had struck an iceberg, that the engine room was flooding, and that the ship was slowly sinking by the bow. Three additional distress calls followed, and then the airwaves went silent—the SS Hans Hedtoft was never heard from again. Nor were any of her passengers or crew.

After a month-long search, hampered by treacherous winter weather, the only wreckage ever discovered—a single lifebuoy—washed up on the shores of Iceland nine months later. Along with the tragic loss of life, three tons of Greenlandic county archives of births, deaths, land deeds, and wills, which were bound for preservation in Demark, went down with the ship. This loss was a massive loss for future Greenlandic genealogists searching for family names and their histories.

Imagine the weight of your own name. You’ve heard it spoken in love, in anger, and in celebration and grief. You’ve seen it written on birthday cards, wedding certificates, and diplomas. You’ve heard it whispered on the dying lips of those who loved you. Why? Because your name is you—it represents who you are and the time you’ve spent treading the boards of this stage we call life.

Now imagine that name—your name—is written, not in ink that fades nor in a corruptible digital memory but inscribed in a book held and read by the Lamb of God Himself: Jesus. Yes! Your name, not recorded because of your worldly achievements. Not listed because of your wealth, or your religiosity, or your perfection. But written because you belong to Him! Because you believed He was the only Son of Father God. Because you believed he was the true Messiah. This is the promise at the heart of the Lamb’s Book of Life.

The Lamb’s Book of Life—a heavenly scroll of Believers’ names—is one of the Good Book’s most ancient images and is mentioned in both Testaments. Moses, interceding for the people of Israel after their sin with the golden calf, prayed, “Please now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” Father God’s response is haunting: “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.” King David, in the Psalms, echoes this gravity: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous.” It was a plea for God to enact justice by removing unrepentant enemies of His from the Book of the Living.

In the New Testament, when Jesus sent out His disciples, and they returned rejoicing because of the wondrous things they had accomplished in His name, He redirected their joy: “Rejoice that your names are written in Heaven.” Please remember, do not let your greatest source of joy be the things YOU do—your good deeds, your philanthropic endeavors, your acts of love and kindness. Let it be that YOU are known in Heaven. That YOUR name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Not might be. Not hopefully will be. But is! We are reminded of this by the Apostle Paul in Philippians.

In Revelation, the Lamb’s Book of Life comes into terrifying focus when it speaks of the Last Days: “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship the Beast, those whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” But there is hope for all who stand strong in their faith, and love and obey Jesus. He will never blot their names out of the Book of Life. He will confess their names before Father God and before His angels. Imagine it: Jesus Christ speaking your name before Father God, claiming you, declaring: “This one is mine.”

Come Judgment Day, there will only be two groups of people: those whose names are written in the Book of Life and those who aren’t. Perhaps the most sobering passage in all of Scripture is this: “And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” Come Judgment Day, the question won’t be, “Were you Catholic? Protestant? Moral? Liberal? Conservative? Gay? Straight? Black? White? Or Asian?” It will simply be: Is YOUR name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?

Ponder this and go forth.