What's the difference between a good afterlife and a bad one? What makes heaven different from hell? In the movie The Fountain, which focuses on life after death, it's unclear.
On Saturday, Casey and I watched The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. It's an artistic movie that weaves together three stories about men in different time periods seeking eternal life.
The movie's afterlife is set in outer space. The main character is essentially alone amongst constellations and nebulas. His only companion is a tree that his dead wife's spirit inhabits. Even after death, the man is still searching for meaning and enlightenment. He's alone and without answers. His world is hazy, silent and empty. Yet, this is the heaven, or bliss, that his wife described to her husband before she died. This calm but barren world was her highest hope. In The Fountain's view of afterlife, man is still lost and still searching for meaning.
I've heard non-believers say that they're not interested in going to heaven because it sounds like a really boring place - listening to harp music, sleeping on clouds, singing hymns. But that's really just a caricature of the heaven of the bible.
Heaven isn't a place, like in the movie the Fountain, of emptiness or solitude, and it isn't a place where anyone is bored by organs playing Amazing Grace.
It's a place where we will be intimate friends with our creator, where every tear will be wiped from our eyes. Sorrow and emptiness won't touch us again.
In heaven, we won't search for meaning. The one who gives purpose to all things will fill our eternities with significance.
We'll never be bored or depressed because the God who invented laughter and love will be our constant companion.
Do you think duck-billed platypuses or three-toed sloths are goofy-looking? I do, and I think all the silly creatures on the earth show that God has a great sense of humor. In heaven, they'll probably be even goofier animals to make us smile.
Do you like swimming in the lake or in your backyard pool? How about swimming through the rings of Saturn? Or exploring all the coral reefs of the oceans and never having to come up for air? Every good and amazing thing is within reach in heaven.
On Saturday, Casey and I watched The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. It's an artistic movie that weaves together three stories about men in different time periods seeking eternal life.
The movie's afterlife is set in outer space. The main character is essentially alone amongst constellations and nebulas. His only companion is a tree that his dead wife's spirit inhabits. Even after death, the man is still searching for meaning and enlightenment. He's alone and without answers. His world is hazy, silent and empty. Yet, this is the heaven, or bliss, that his wife described to her husband before she died. This calm but barren world was her highest hope. In The Fountain's view of afterlife, man is still lost and still searching for meaning.
I've heard non-believers say that they're not interested in going to heaven because it sounds like a really boring place - listening to harp music, sleeping on clouds, singing hymns. But that's really just a caricature of the heaven of the bible.
Heaven isn't a place, like in the movie the Fountain, of emptiness or solitude, and it isn't a place where anyone is bored by organs playing Amazing Grace.
It's a place where we will be intimate friends with our creator, where every tear will be wiped from our eyes. Sorrow and emptiness won't touch us again.
In heaven, we won't search for meaning. The one who gives purpose to all things will fill our eternities with significance.
We'll never be bored or depressed because the God who invented laughter and love will be our constant companion.
Do you think duck-billed platypuses or three-toed sloths are goofy-looking? I do, and I think all the silly creatures on the earth show that God has a great sense of humor. In heaven, they'll probably be even goofier animals to make us smile.
Do you like swimming in the lake or in your backyard pool? How about swimming through the rings of Saturn? Or exploring all the coral reefs of the oceans and never having to come up for air? Every good and amazing thing is within reach in heaven.
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