Living Forever - Life, Death and Frankenstein

People have always held a fascination for the hereafter: whether it exists; what it will look like; and what it takes to get there.  This fascination expresses itself more as a fateful dread of death and the search for meaning in life.  Hence the vain struggle to stay young, the attempts to find meaning in sex, toys, power and prestige.  Hence the stories of the fountain of youth and Achilles heel.  Hence the appreciation of valor and self-sacrifice as virtues. 

Some coworkers and I visited a mausoleum of a king that died 2000 years ago.  This man was dressed in burial clothes covered head to foot in jade.  His best jewelry was laid on his chest.  A large number of swords were at his side.  In the room next to him, his subjects interred 4 concubines.  The burial site also included a livestock pen full of animals, 200 birds, pottery, eating and drinking vessels, musical instruments, the chief musician, and the chief chef.  Whoever buried this king believed these things would serve the him well in the next life . . . but what was discovered were remains of a very rich man and the best of what this life could offer, all sealed shut in a tomb discovered 2000 years later. 

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein describes a human attempt to create life after death – or in the case of Frankenstein, life from death.  Assemble dead body parts from multiple sources, apply some source of energy, and . . . he’s alive!  That monster would be gruesome . . . and soulless (or was he ?).   In the upcoming full length cartoon movie, “Frankenweenie” a boy misses his dog so much that he removes him from the ground and tries to bring him to life (from death) and succeeds.  Or consider, Robocop.  Or Zombies.  Or Dracula and the whole vampire genre – the “living dead”? 

Truth is, resurrection is the elusive characteristic of life.  Every religion has a version of life after death, be it Nirvana, reincarnation, merging with the collective soul or the universe, karma, paradise, heaven . . . or the hope in posterity of natural selection due to better genes.  Most of these are based on achieving a state of perfection, or something close enough, by our own merits.  Is it vain to think that me by my human efforts can secure life after death?  That I have any influence over that?  As some have said, death is the 100% human condition – we were all born, we all age, we all . . . and we can’t escape it. 

So what do we do?  Try to stay young?  Try to control our lives?  Try to boast in our successes and our riches based on what we’ve made of ourselves?  Are we really that strong that we can avert death on our own?  We can be wise.  We can pay for the best medicine.  We can have luxuries afforded only to the rich, but in the end? 

Clone ourselves to harvest our own organs (the movie, “The Island”)?

I’m not talking about living longer due to medical advances.   That’s all well and good.  I’m talking about the human condition. 

The recent movie, “In Time” depicts what life might be like if aging stopped at 25 and the amount of time we had to live depended on what we were paid, in time, for wages, based largely on our upbringing/neighborhood.  Interesting concept.  What would it change?  Live forever . . . if you live in the right neighborhood; or steal enough time from others; or manage to escape your neighborhood and enforce the existing sociological eco-system of time control.  But would that be life?  Would you be bored like the rich man with hundreds of years who gives his life away and commits suicide, leaving an exit note of “use it well”?  Would you hoard your life (time) to ensure your immortality?

Much of the movie is partly about the efforts of one rich girl of 25 and 2 to find meaning in her riches.  To truly live and experience life.  To get out of your protective cocoon.  If life is only what you can make it, and the only solution is a human solution, you are left with either trying to make a utopia of equal outcomes or to preserve your own life as much as possible.  Both are actively portrayed by the movie, and neither is humanly possible.  Just look around.  The movie ends with two people walking up the steps of a mega large bank to once again distribute time stolen to the poor. What happens when the last of the banks is robbed? How much bigger could they go?

Truth is, the life we need is an eternal fix to the human condition – forgiveness from sins – to have our slate wiped clean and be renewed from the inside.  That’s not something we can scratch clean; it’s not something we can buy.  What are we to do?

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death – physical and spiritual – but that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Physical death?  Obviously not.  Spiritual. 

Unlike the vain attempts to stay young – to avert death – the Bible acknowledges the reality of death as a consequence of sin, and instead of trying to avoid death (or embrace it), the Bible confronts it.  The Bible also answers the question about the hereafter.  Jesus Christ, being God, became man to die in our place.  He was buried (physically) and on the third day he arose from the dead (physically) – not as a soulless monster, but as the Lord of Life, promising to impart that life to all of those who believe in Him as Lord, for the forgiveness of their sins. 

“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”   “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Those who have accepted His death on their behalf, and who "confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord, and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead, shall be saved." 

Jesus says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,  and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”  Then Jesus asks, “Do you believe this?”  -- John 11:25-26   This statement is part of an interesting passage in the Bible where Jesus raises a man named Lazarus from the dead.  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2011:1-45&version=NASB   

So where does this leave us?  Christ’s death and resurrection is the solution to eternal life and salvation from the eternal consequences of sin (physical and spiritual death). 

There’s no need to fear death in Christ.  There is no need to find the figurative fountain of youth.  There is no need to be buried with the riches of this life to accompany you to the next.  There is no need to live on eternally in the present, or in memories of others, or in the genes we pass on to posterity.  There is no need to become part of the living dead to prey on the living and be “immortal”.  There is no need to preserve the life of a loved dead one like in “Frankenweenie”.  There is no need to create life from death. 

Also, I don’t have to work to save myself; and I don’t have to rely on what I can achieve this life to find meaning.  I can live knowing death is not the end.  A songwriter says, “there’s more to this life than living and dying – more than just trying to make it through the day.”  Or another songwriter, “because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone – because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives. “ 

The Bible says that “for the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”  “For I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him [my life] until that day.”  

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”  “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  “. . . through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”  “When you were dead in your transgressions . . . He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

And that, my friend, is being alive (in Christ).  And then there is the promise of eternal life: "Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus . . . and you shall be saved."  Jesus says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

“Do you believe this?”