There is something special about life itself. If we knew enough about it we would use it as our first evidence of God. Israel was told, from the time of Moses to: Choose life. To follow Israel’s history is to follow an alternating pattern of choosing life, and choosing death, without the realization that if not choosing life the automatic alternative is death – even if it is slow death. It is obvious, even if not fully comprehended, that the absence of life is death (silence/end). Life may end suddenly as in an accident, but the common experience is that it slips away, or goes away, from the person. According to Christian Scripture a major interest for God is to preserve life to perpetuity, to a planned pattern in nature, and to a plan of immortality for the human soul, the key to life as the Christian embraces life. It is interesting that evidence available to mankind, at this juncture in history, shows no living intelligence or organism residing on other planets than earth. For decades Jill Tarter, with government funding, attempted to find other beings on other planets, hoping to announce to the human race: We are not alone. She could not find any Extra Terrestrial being. This year, 2012, she retired, funding was written out of budgets, as she reported to The New York Times. Her departing words were that if there were terrestrial beings they would not be: at the microbial scale. That is, they would not have the flesh life we know, or the culture of work or food consumption. They would be something else, and, if visiting earth, would simply be exploring, with no physical threat to human beings. We are left either to faith in our unique self, or God. Mankind continues to be a unique factor in a universe of unbelievable immensity. (At this writing there remains some effort to hear from outer space, even to reserving a swath of territory in Virginia and West Virginia declared free from wireless phone gadgets so as to avoid interference if a signal should arrive on earth from space. Even this prohibition may fade.) So far there is no evidence that there are other creatures out there.
Life is the last factor the human being gives up in nature. Everything else goes first. The importance of life to the conclusion of our natural experience is partly detected in the interest Jesus had in the health of persons to whom he spoke. His message was about life and God, both in nature and in the hereafter when nature’s life has expired. Fitting to his emphasis on life, miracles of healing accompanied his ministry, but ceased in communities where Christ’s motives and message were not effective in breakthrough to the citizens of those communities. In the world of unto death, Jesus and the disciples provided spiritual relief, providing promised life in perpetuity. It was a message of hope, verified with evidence favoring life, and the masses of populations were to learn what the redemptive purpose of God, for the preservation of life, would be. The concept is wrapped up in the Christian Gospel of redemptive life. Take it or leave it.
Warren Wolfe, in the Minneapolis StarTribune, asked the question in 2012: Will I Live to be 100? The evidence suggests that for those living to the age of 90 years, as I have, there is the statistical likelihood that person will live to be 95 years. If achieving 95 years, the remaining presumably look to their 100th birthday. In the U.S.A. one in 6,000 persons, lives to be 100 years of age. One in 7 million survives to 110 years – about a total of 40 persons at any one time. In 1900 average life span was 45 years. In 2,000 it was nearly 80. Most of the addition has been due to better medicine from birth to death, to improved conditions that forestall illness, to better diets, and practice of health habits. The main accounting for lengthening life is that newborns have a better survival rate than ever before. Dramatic extension of years is likely over, although there is research effort to extend life to 150 years. The effort is now exacerbated by Alzheimer’s, decrepitude, cancer, and support for the aged. What mankind finds for good is, perhaps, matched by the new or expanded problems created. Postponement of death is not the answer the Christian looks for. The answer in the kingdom of God is transition from this life to what Scripture describes as immortality with Christ. It means a life that will be fulfilling, ongoing, loving and peaceful. There will be significant difference in all things, but life is God’s. For many persons, even some with a human-like faith, the blessed hope in Christ is too fanciful for them. Christian faith is that persons can settle well in Christ – to life immortal. It is interesting that we are attempting to extend life, when the effort ought to be devoted to that which improves the quality of life. Quality, not length, is the greater issue. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020