Week 31: Being Remembered

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth today you will be with me in paradise.”  Luke 23:43

 

For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall …”  1 Peter 1:24

Do you remember who won the World Series in 1995?  Do you remember who won Miss America last year, or who won the Academy Award for Best Actress?  Name the lawyers in your city who died even a year ago, maybe one who was prominent, wealthy, active in civil affairs.  No one comes to mind?  Do you recall firms in your city?  When, do you suppose was the last time anyone remembered them?  Do you ever even think about Abe Lincoln, Holmes, or Darrow – famous lawyers all?  How quickly we forget.

When did you last remember a deceased family member, except perhaps on an anniversary or a holiday, and maybe not then?  Remember your senior year in high school?  Your date at the senior prom?  What about your senior year in college – maybe law school?  Yesterday, it seems – no, not quite – but kind of a blur since then, and how come my classmates all looked so old at our last reunion.  The years went fast since then and are going faster.  Speed picks up going downhill.  And as we skip down memory lane, do you think that any of all those old chums has remembered you lately, or ever for that matter, and who do you think will remember you after you die?  Surely your loved ones will remember you always!  Surely.

Soon you’ll only draw an anniversary or holiday tear, but sooner than you’d like to think, the memory of you will fade like an untreated Polaroid picture.  And what becomes of all the work you produced practicing law or sitting on the bench or counseling the Board of Directors.  All those briefs, opinions (even the published ones), the contracts?  Will they be so prominent that your work will result in immortality?  Not likely.  Your parenting or grandparenting if well done, will certainly have a lasting influence, but it’s doubtful you will be remembered for it.

Peter noted the “temporariness” of our human lives and our pretended fame: “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.”

What a sorry dilemma!  So what?  “Here today, gone tomorrow,” seems to be the popular approach.  What’s the value of being remembered?  Well, “gone tomorrow” begs the question.  The question from a spiritual standpoint is gone where?  Being remembered for worldly accomplishment by earthly beings is not only not likely, it’s useless.  In that sense, “So what?” is the right answer.

But, what about your spiritual being, that part of you which will spend eternity somewhere?  When you die it had better be your prayer that God will remember you or “To hell with you,” may well be your epitaph.

And, what will insure that God will remember you?  The most efficient way to be remembered by God is to ask His Son to “Remember Me,” as did one of the criminals crucified with Christ.  In the Gospel of Luke, 23:39-43, describing the crucifixion, Luke writes:

One of the criminals who hung these hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ?  Save yourself and us!”  But the other criminal rebuked him.  “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth today you will be with me in paradise.”

If by simply asking Jesus to be “remembered” was sufficient to guarantee that criminal a place with Jesus in Paradise, should you not take the hint?  Our guarantee of being remembered for eternity, the only time being remembered really counts, rests not in our own inherent fame or historical significance, but by linking our lives with Christ who has redeemed us and given “everlasting life.”

Jim Jenkins

– This article comes from AI’s devotional for lawyers titled, “What Does the Lord Require of You?”