Memory Eternal
While folding invoices today, I was listening to the Dave Matthews Band’s song, “So Right”. I was reminded that a theme that is so prevalent in the band’s music is “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. A certainly line stood out to me: “stay up and make some memories.” I began to think about the concept of memories. I tend to live a lot in the past, immersed in memories and idealizing past moments. In a worldly life, all one has are memories. When memories aren’t contemplated, one spends the remainder of their time in attempting to build new ones. And then, when we pass from this life, we hope that those we love, and even those we didn’t know at all, remember us and consider our life to have been something that contributed to the world.
This train of thought can easily lead to a sad place. There is something in us that wants to believe there is life beyond the grave. Yet, because of fear and selfishness, we live as though this life is all there is. However, the doctrine of resurrection is central to the Christian faith. St. Paul says: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable (1 Cor. 15:19). Yet the concept of eternal life is as incomprehensible to us as the concept of death. As I quoted in the previous post, in the popular book Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie says, “Everyone knows they are going to die, but no one believes it.” We are created to be animated, living, vibrant people. Not a soul trapped in the body as in a prison, but the two are inseparable…naturally. In death people experience this separation every day, not because it’s a “part of life,” but because it is an unnatural occurrence that is because of us separating ourselves from God, the source of life.
Yet, there is hope in Christ, not in this life only, but beyond. And that hope begins now. So many, even Christians, want to be remembered by men. This is somewhat understandable. In the Old Testament, there is little concept of eternal life as we know it. We tend to look at the person as a dualistic being where body and soul are so different. Yet the Hebrews saw man as a wholistic being. There was no hell, but not really heaven either. There was Sheol, Hades, the grave, where the fool and the wise man alike met their end. For a person’s life to continue, it had to continue in progeny and memory. To be remembered was to live forever. This legacy (eternal life), was promised to those who followed the commandments of God, the righteous. Let us see the difference between the righteous and evil as David observes:
Surely [the good man] will never be shaken; the righteous will be in everlasting remembrance. –Psalm 112: 6
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. –Psalm 34:16
When we say that we want people to remember us after our death, I believe we are really saying, we want to live forever. There is nothing wrong with this. However, we must begin to see this in a different light. Our concept and hope of eternal life is far to narrow. We must broaden our scope to desire not that men would remember us, but that God would remember us. The remembrance of God is far different from the remembrance of man. The remembrance of God is not always obvious and therefore often looks less attractive. However, when God remembers us, it affects something for greater than when men do. In the Old Testament, God’s remembrance was equivalent to His salvation. For God to remember you was for God to do something great on your behalf. When God remembered Noah, he removed the flood waters from the earth (Gen. 8). When rainbows appeared in the sky, God remembered His covenant with man to never destroy the world with a flood (Gen. 9). When God remembered Rachel, the wife of Jacob, He opened her barren womb and she bore a son (Gen. 30).
Just as we are called by Christ to not seek the praise of men, we are called to seek His remembrance, rather than men’s. People can remember us, but eventually, they too will pass from this world and others must take up the work of remembering them. Yet our God never sleeps, and when God remembers, His memory is truly eternal. It is only in the memory of God that we can truly have eternal life. This is what is meant when we in the Orthodox Church proclaim “Memory eternal” in reference to someone who has reposed. This is what the good thief recognized. As part of the Ninth Hour, we Orthodox sing: Between two thieves Thy Cross did prove to be a balance of righteousness. Wherefore one of them was dragged down to Hades by the weight of his blasphemy whereas the other was lightened of his transgressions unto the comprehension of theology. O Christ God, glory to Thee. The thief asks Christ to remember him when He comes into His kingdom. This is truly a remarkable request considering than Man being asked is a beaten, bloody, Jewish reject nailed to a cross, under the same condemnation as the one asking. Yet it is precisely this kind of faith that we must have when approaching our own death, and the faith we as the Church must have in our services for those who have reposed in the faith.
Eternal life is so much more than this limited existence we have in this world. There have been numerous men and women of faith over the centuries who have lived their lives unto salvation and passed out of this life with no one to remember them, no one to even know they had died. Yet these did not look for the praise or remembrance of man, but that of God. Is it wrong to want to be remembered by our friends, family, or even those we were not close to? No. Just as it is not wrong to desire approval from men. However, this all must be kept in its right context. Let us seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first and those other things will be added to us.
As I have written this, I have been trying to see what it is I am ultimately trying to say in this. This post feels much more scattered than usual. I suppose, I want to end where I began. This world is like a horse with blinders, seeing only what is in front of it. All it can find to do is live for its own desires and hope that in the end, someone here cares that they were here and that they are gone. But let us, who profess faith in Christ, whose kingdom shall have no end, look for something greater. Let us live in eternity now. Let us find salvation and eternal life, not in accomplishments or in a life lived unaccountable to anyone, but one lived in the fear and love and commandments of God. Let us humble ourselves before our crucified Lord and ask that He would remember us when He comes into His kingdom, and may He grant us eternal life, as only He can.
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