I recently watched the Academy Award-winning animated movie Coco. Spoiler alert: It's good! (Editor's note: Will's a little confused on what actually constitutes a "spoiler." I think he just really wanted to use the phrase "spoiler alert.")
So I don't want to ruin the movie for you too much, but some of the scenes take place in the Land of the Dead. (Parents, it's actually a very cute and cuddly Pixar/Disney-style Land of the Dead, so it's not really scary, even for youngsters.)
There's one scene in particular from the movie that caught my attention and got me thinking. The scene depicted dead people who looked to be different ages. That is, one dead person appeared to be about 35, another looked maybe 55, and a third looked like she was at least 85. I think the idea the filmmakers were trying to convey was dead people showed up in the Land of the Dead appearing about the same age as when they left the Land of the Living.
But like I mentioned, that scene got me wondering: "Is that right? Will we be different ages in heaven? Or will everybody look to be about the same age?"
I think I've decided we're all going to be about the same age in heaven. Here's why:
If there are helpless infants in heaven, somebody's going to be stuck taking care of them—a labor of love, I'm sure, but it'll last an eternity! That doesn't seem fair.
Likewise, if there are a bunch of geriatrics with walkers shuffling around heaven and driving .35 the speed of light in a .65 the speed of light zone, that's going to get a bit annoying after a few millennia as well.
What if I'm right, thoughtful readers? What if we're all going to look about the same age in heaven? Furthermore, if we got to choose what age we'll be in heaven, what age would you choose?
For me, I think I'd like to be around 30. I recall when I was growing up, I always wanted to be older than I currently was. That is, when I was in grade school, I wanted to be a teenager; when I was a teenager, I looked forward to being in my twenties. That sort of thinking stopped when I hit my thirties, though. In fact, as I grew closer to 40, my new thinking was how nice it would be to go back to my early thirties, when I still had plenty of energy all the time—before my get-up-and-go got-up-and-went, as they say.
But I speculate God has already arranged for our resurrected bodies to look to be about 30 years old. Why? Because when God first fashioned Adam out of some earth, He created him "in His image." We know from the Gospel of John that the Word was the Creator of everything, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So I think Adam looked like Jesus.
But what Jesus? A baby lying in a manger? A boy speaking with rabbis in the Temple? Jesus in agony on the cross? No, none of those. Because Adam was created to be physically immortal, I think he was originally created with an incorruptible body. You know, like a resurrected body. And Jesus first had that same kind of incorruptible body after His resurrection, which happened after His death at about age 30. So that's my reasoning for concluding we'll all look to be about 30 in eternity.
(The underlined words above are links back to the applicable Bible verses. Just click a link to see for yourself.)
One more thing, readers: I'm beginning work on a special writing project related to this wonderful blog, THE MAIN THING. I think the project's going to take up much of my available writing time. Therefore over the next few months, I may deviate somewhat from my established schedule of new posts twice a week. Thank you for your patience!