“You are a grave without a name”.

This harsh rebuke undermines the whole sense of a person’s life and legacy.
It states that a person has no purposeful direction. The result of their life is meaningless. The world will look back indifferently with nothing of lasting value to speak for what they had achieved.
That being true it also implies the person is not worthy to be followed. To be a grave without a name is to be irrelevant, what is said or achieved will be quickly forgotten. Whoever might follow would meet the same fate.
During an interview with The Paris Review author and poet Vladimir Nabokov said something to the same effect when asked about contemporary authors he disliked:
“Their names are engraved on empty graves, their books are dummies, they are complete nonentities insofar as my taste in reading is concerned.”
Essentially he said these people are so irrelevant they are bodies waiting for the grave, nothing they have accomplished hold any place in my thinking.
Jesus Christ while addressing the Pharisees’ hypocrisy offered his rebuke in a similar crushing statement from Luke 11:44
Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men will walk over without knowing it.
Jesus made a punishing call to the Pharisees that also challenged all who were present. He rebuked these men for their falsehood and the burden they placed on the people, he challenged the core of their character and the direction they were leading, he told them they were empty. They would not be remembered; their graves would be walked over unnoticed and of which there would be no thought.
Great people are remembered. Graves are places people visit to acknowledge those who have past and have left a legacy. Jesus said this would not happen to those Pharisees.
Through this statement Jesus made it known to all those who were present and witnessed this rebuke towards the Pharisees that they were not worth following, they were false and their lifestyles were not worth emulating or even holding in any regard.
The flipside is; Jesus had to be the opposite. As he made this statement of woe his double-sided message was the Pharisees were not worth being followed and it is better following him. His message is worth listening to, and his life deserves to be emulated. Rather than being led by men marching towards white washed tombs, follow the one who will leave a tomb empty. His message is a legacy of life and freedom, not death or a grave.
Like the Pharisees there are many in church leadership today who deny the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit because it doesn’t work for their particular viewpoint. How their views are formed may be based on a number of variables from fear to pure unbelief or possibly the dislike of not being in control.
Luke 13:10-17
On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
People saw first-hand the authority of Jesus and the challenges he put towards the Pharisees, and the Pharisees did not like it as it did not fit how they believed a person should act in regards to them or the law.
Jesus proved to be the man to follow in order to live a life of purpose and freedom. He continually displayed this throughout his life. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit people are able to follow in his footsteps.
John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.
Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
2 Corinthians 1:21
Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Unfortunately there are many within the church that still refuse and refute this gift.
The hope for all Christians is to “Become Like Christ,” which means taking on a new identity in Christ and relating to the world with a new understanding. This is done through the work of the Holy Spirit, knowing the word of God, and submitting to godly leadership.
1 Corinthians 4:15-16
Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me.
1 Corinthians 11:1
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
Paul himself rebuked Peter when he strayed from the new covenant of which Jesus had ushered:
Galatians 2:11
When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Peter had to be reminded about who and what he was meant to be emulating under the new covenant.
Galatians 3:26-29
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Paul reminds the church in Colossians 5:8
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
John 14:5-7
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Jesus said he is the way, the truth and the life. He called the Pharisees unmarked graves that will be walked over and forgotten.
Who are you following, are you holding to the truth?