There was recently something written in graffitti on a wall here in our town. In English, you would translate it to read:
He is only forgotten if no one speaks of him any longer.
I appreciate the sentiment, I do. They placed this script alongside a picture of their friend who had passed away too young. Maybe of sickness. Maybe in an accident. Possibly something else. Who knows… Whoever wrote it wanted to honor their friend, and I can appreciate that.
On the other hand, I think that it is much more important to realize now the fragility and truly short-lived nature of our lives. For example, here is something else that I read online recently:
In 100 years we will all be buried with our relatives and friends.
Strangers will live in our homes we fought so hard to build, and they will own everything we have today. All our possessions will be unknown, including the car we spent a fortune on, and will probably be scrap, preferably in the hands of an unknown collector.
Our descendants will hardly or hardly know who we were, nor will they remember us. How many of us know our grandfather’s father?
After we die, we will be remembered for a few more years, then we are just a portrait on someone’s bookshelf, and a few years later our history, photos and deeds disappear in history’s oblivion. We won’t even be memories.
Let’s be honest. That’s a much more likely scenario, right? Isn’t it true that, very soon, we probably won’t even be memories?
Yes, that is the truth. That is the reality. A few people will live on in various history books for the next few hundred years, but even for them, not much more than that. Otherwise, for the rest of us, we will be “dust in the wind”, as was once wrote in a famous pop song.
Yet we still have within us a desire to live on. We have a desire for eternity. We have a longing for forever.
Forever, in our physical bodies or in the history books, simply isn’t available to us. But forever is available to us spiritually. It is available to us through Christ.
The Apostle Peter spoke to us on this theme. Here is what he said:
“All people are like grass,
1 Peter 1:24-25
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
Peter explains that our days our numbered. You can see the grass today, but the truth is that it will wither.
You can see the beautiful flowers today, but they will soon fall.
But what will live on? The word of the Lord. And that is all. God and his word will live on forever. God’s Kingdom will remain. That is what has been prophecied for millenia, and that is what came true through Christ 2000 years ago. That truth continues on to this day and will continue on forever.
God offers each of us eternal life. You can live on forever, but only if you are found in Christ. If you are in Christ, you will be given a new life, life in eternity. In this way, you will not be lost, but you will be found alive into eternity. Eternal with Christ.