I recently came across one of those slideshow articles that populate the internet, that are designed to waste your time. This one caught my attention because it was titled, “14 Ways to Achieve Immortality”. It had some interesting (and crazy) ideas included on the list. Some of them include “become a cyborg”, “cloning”, and “befriend a tech billionaire”. But one in particular that caught my attention because of its seeming popularity was “Cryonics: freezing yourself to life”.

In the hot desert of Scottsdale, Arizona, there is a very “cool” facility, the home of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Since 1972, this organization has preserved 170 patients and 1,400 others making preparations for their cryopreservation. These patients pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have their entire bodies frozen, or slightly less for just their head, in hopes that someday in the future they can be revived to live again. Good news for you baseball fans out there, one user of Alcor’s procedure is the legend Ted Williams. The cryonics movement became popular after the publication of Robert Ettinger’s 1964 book, The Prospect of Immortality.

The prospect of immortality captivates the imagination of everyone. Standing at the foot of the grave of a loved one, or facing our own mortality, we may contemplate the prospect of cheating death ourselves. If only we could live forever …

Here we have a hope to offer to the world. The Christian faith doesn’t offer the mere prospect of immortality; it offers the certain promise of immortality. This is what we celebrate at Easter, the promise of life everlasting becoming a reality! Who doesn’t look forward to the joyful declaration: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!” And as we remember Jesus’ resurrection, we look forward to our own Easter, our resurrection to be, when we will fully experience God’s gift of eternal life. St. Paul asks, “O death, where is they sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55) He is able to ask in the face of death because we have confidence that death is not the victor, but Jesus is. Easter’s empty tomb eliminates the dreaded prospect of death and delivers the promise of immortality to all who believe.

Easter Blessings,

Pastor Nyck