Hope for Tomorrow

When I read the Bible, God’s promise of a glorious, eternal future for all who trust in Jesus grabs my heart.  Nothing can separate God’s children from his love, not even death! (Romans 8:38-39).  We walk with Christ today, secure in the hope of a most excellent tomorrow!

But this God-centered vision of the future clashes with pop-culture.  A Jose Cuervo tequila commercial depicts the end of the world.  While chaos unfolds outside, a man in a bar puts the Elvis song, “It’s Now or Never,” on the jukebox.  As he dances, a woman joins him—this is their moment, even as civilization crumbles and a crack in the earth is about to swallow the bar.  “It’s now or never … tomorrow will be too late.” The commercial ends with the tagline, “Tomorrow is overrated.”  Message:  Forget the future, live for today.

Of course, the now-centric outlook is nothing new.  A Schlitz beer commercial from 1971 says, “You only go around once.  You gotta grab for all the gusto you can.”  Message:  This life is all there is, it will be over soon, so get what you can for yourself before all is lost.

How are we to think about time?  Would we like to find a fountain of youth?  An article in the journal Nature (2016), “Evidence for a Limit to Human Lifespan,” challenges “suggestions that longevity may not be sub­ject to strict, species-specific genetic constraints…  Our results strongly suggest that the maximum lifespan of humans is fixed and subject to natural constraints.”  The outer limit is 115 years.

But not so fast:  A follow-up article in Nature (2017) disputes the earlier study, charging its authors with statistical errors, and insisting that the idea of a 115-year lifespan limit is “unfounded.”  In fact, the data suggest there is no limit to lifespan at this point in time.

How about that—no limit.  Maybe one day humans will be able to medicate and genetically modify themselves into immortality!  Or maybe not.  I’m all for scientific progress, but at the same time it seems like a pretty bleak prospect to live endlessly in this world with these bodies, compared to entering into God’s new heavens and new earth in resurrection bodies like that of the risen Lord Jesus Christ!

How about you?  What’s your hope for tomorrow?