Your legacy isn’t just how people will remember you, but how people will live because of you
No one likes to think about being gone one day. But it’s the one thing that everyone, rich or poor, American or Chinese, old or young, beloved or hated, arrogant or humble, selfless or selfish, have in common. There will come a day when we are no longer here on this earth, and we’ve entered our eternal dwelling. And so anyone who cares about their life has to ask: What will people think of me after I’m gone? What will my legacy be?
I know that some of us might be inclined to think, “Well, not many people will remember me!” That’s probably true. Unless you get pretty famous, our family and a few close friends might remember us, but within 50 years the memory of us will probably just be second-hand stories, and within 150 years, like I did with my 3rd great-grandparents Phil and Catherine, people will probably have to dig into old dusty records, or pore through the corrupted archives of the ancient Internet, just to learn our names.
That, however, is not the kind of legacy I’m talking about.
It’s true that not many people will remember you, specifically. But they will remember their experiences with you, and those experiences will have a ripple effect that will continue on down through time. The experiences your children or friends or family have with you, even if they don’t specifically remember them, will have an effect on them. Especially when it comes to younger people or peers who look to us for an example, it will make a big impression on not just how they remember you, but the way they live. That, I think, is where our legacy will be the most felt, have the most impact. It won’t be in the conscious memories people have of us, but in the way they live because of us.
I think a very clear example of this is someone who’s not in the Bible directly, but about whom the Book of Daniel prophesied: Alexander the Great. Today, most of us don’t think much about him. He’s kind of a cool conquering hero who accomplished the unprecedented feat of creating a tri-continental empire from Macedonia to India to Egypt. He’s an impressive bit of trivia in the traces of historical memory.
Alexander was an extremely ambitious man. His father had him leading armies into battle at the age of 16. When he was crowned king of Macedonia at the age of 20 after his father was assassinated, he wanted to conquer territory, win battles, and make a name for himself. But as he conquered more and more territory, his ambition grew and grew, and he continued to conquer for years. The Jewish historian Josephus claims that, when Alexander entered Jerusalem, he was told that the Book of Daniel had prophesied about him (Daniel 7-8), and was deeply moved. If there is any truth to that, no doubt it only inflated his opinion of himself.
He named cities after himself (i.e. Alexandria, Egypt), enslaved, tortured, and executed many who opposed him, and even accepted worship as a deity. He was a courageous and successful general-king, but he was also a politician, manipulator, and even to some an oppressor. It was only because his men were getting homesick and there were grumblings against him that he finally agreed to return home. Unfortunately for him, on the way back, he contracted an illness and died at the age of 33.
After his death, there was a crisis of succession. It was probably Alexander’s desire to have one successor who would rule a unified empire. But a peaceful hierarchy of leadership wasn’t the kind of legacy he left. Instead, his generals, family members, and friends all clamored for power and control. Eventually, the empire split up as four people emerged as rulers of sections of Alexander’s territory: basically Egypt, Persia, Syria, and Greece. For hundreds of years, these rulers — imitating the ambitious desire for conquest of their predecessor — engaged in constant warfare, resulting in the needless deaths of myriads of people, and in the words of Josephus, bringing “great misery on the world.” Eventually, this constant fighting led to the situation prophesied in Daniel 9, when the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes IV, fresh off a new conquest of Judea, set up an idol in the temple and forbade the practice of Judaism entirely. That led to the famous Maccabean revolt, which led to Judea becoming allied to Rome, and eventually becoming enslaved to Rome as they were in Jesus’ day. Even as Jesus walked the earth, the miserable ripple effects of Alexander’s legacy were still being felt.
The legacy Alexander left was one of ambition and conquest. So, is it surprising to anyone that everyone under his authority picked up on that legacy and continued what he’d started: an unrelenting ambition for world domination?
Someone might say, “Well, Alexander was a great conqueror; of course his legacy is going to be felt.” Of course, his legacy was more evident than ours will be. But even still, what about those who encouraged him in his conquests? What about those who fought for him? They contributed to that legacy as well, intentionally or not. And their own legacies — of eager participation in wars of conquest — were passed down to their own families and friends, who eagerly participated in the wars of Alexander’s successors.
So what does that mean for us today? It means that we need to be conscious of not just what we are doing in the moment, or what people will think of us here and now, or even how we will be remembered, but what will our memory inspire people to do?
It could be small things. That person you gave $5 to when they didn’t have enough for groceries — they’ll probably remember that for months, maybe years. It could inspire them to be the same kind of generous one day. But, the customer service rep you were rude to on the phone (yes, I am guilty of this) may have their day spoiled, and in turn lash out at someone else. Bigger things have an even bigger impact. The effects of divorce and abuse and addiction can be demonstrated to continue down the line for centuries. The effects and example of a lifestyle marked by generosity and self-sacrifice will make for stories that may be told second- or third-hand to people in 100 years. Will people ever be inspired to do great things for God because of our example, because they want to be like us? Or will they ever excuse the bad things they do because, “Well, Dad/Mom/Uncle Joe/my best friend/the pastor did that too”? The ripple effects of our actions are felt long after we do them, and often they are highlighted and enhanced by people who know us best.
And ultimately, just like Alexander’s soldiers and servants contributed to his legacy, we, as soldiers and servants of Christ, contribute to Christ’s legacy. What kind of effect are we having on the legacy Christ left? Are we soiling his legacy by professing to follow him and living un-Christ-like lives? Or are we enhancing it by fulfilling his prophecy to his disciples: “You will do greater things than these [that is, the things Jesus did”?
Our legacy has the very real power to either screw up people’s lives or save them. Each of us is responsible for making sure that it does the latter.
