life, death, and everlasting life

The other night we watched Tuck Everlasting. Winnie, the girl who discovers the Tuck’s secret, that they will never die, says at one point, “I wish this moment could last forever.”

Jesse Tuck, who is already going to live forever, tells Winnie how great it would be to have moments like that forever. Forever. That’s a long time.

Sometimes I get caught up in the joy of life on earth, and like Winnie, I wish it would last forever. I wish I could stay 18 forever.

The Tucks ability to live forever comes from a certain spring. When a man in yellow who has been tracking them discovers the secret, he wants to sell the water to ‘deserving people’. He really seems to think it will bring great happiness.

Why wouldn’t it bring great happiness? Jesse’s father had it partly right. “What we are, you can’t call living,” he says. As the movie progresses, living forever seems less and less appealing. No change. Just ‘rocks stuck by a stream.’

There’s another reason why it wouldn’t bring great happiness. This earth is completely corrupted and to live here forever would be horrible. No escape. It would become tiresome.

To live forever, in our present sinful state, isn’t what God meant for us. In a sinless world, Adam and Eve would have lived forever.

The only everlasting life that would truly bring happiness is life with God in heaven, in a new sinless world, with our sinful natures forever banished.

The message of the movie really struck home with me. Mr. Tuck says to Winnie after she finds out that the Tuck family will live forever, “Don’t be afraid of dying, Winnie. Be afraid of the unlived life.”

The unlived life. Death is frightening. But it would be more frightening to be forever trapped in this depraved world. The movie reminded me to live my life. Change is a wonderful thing, although it may seem frightening in the moment. I must just live my life, and when I die, my sinless eternal life in heaven will truly be wonderful.