a repost from my old blog: Law and Grace in an Unlikely Place
Who wants to die right? Not me. What makes death bearable for a lot of
us is that we don’t have to think about it most of the time. It always
seems so much further off than things that are happening day to day and
we can put off thinking about it. I’ve often wondered if people who are
closer to death, like people in their 70 and 80s, do mental
calculations about the short amount of time they have left and if it
frightens them. I wonder if it will frighten me when I reach there (if I
reach there).
In the movie Stranger than Fiction Harold Crick is a man
who’s like most of us, just going through life and not really thinking
about death, until one day his life is invaded by a voice from the
heavens that begins narrating his life. The voice is scarily accurate
and he wonders what is going on. One day his watch stops at the bus
stop. He resets it to the time on one of his fellow commuter’s watches
and the voice says “Little did he know that this simple seemingly
innocuous act would result in his imminent death.” Harold yells “What?
What? Hey! HELLOOO! What? Why? Why MY death? HELLO? Excuse me? WHEN?”
This scene sets off a chain of events where in absolute panic he tries
to find a way out of his fate. Harold is thinking “I’m not ready! I
haven’t thought about it, I’m not prepared! I’ve got the rest of my
life to live” even though his life had actually been pretty rubbish up
to that point.
To not fear death like Harold does, seems stranger than fiction. But
this is the very gift that Christians have; of being able to look toward
death with hope.
Hope in death? Yes, the hope that death is not the end, but only the
beginning of something much better than what this life has. In this
life we struggle with sin; sin that others do to us, sin that we do to
others, sin that happens on the news and sin that torments us inside.
Life is a battle that is hard and full of temptations, heartache and
then you die. The hope the Christian has in death is that we will not
be forgotten after we are eaten by worms, but that we will be raised
again and made into something new. New life in a resurrected body that
will not sin or ache or break down but will go on forever in a place
that will have no more pain, sorrow or death and we will be with our
great saviour forever!
The more Harold Crick investigated his death and what it would mean, the
more he came to terms with it, and when it was time, he was ready.
(spoiler alert!!) At the end of the movie, the author of the book about
Harold’s death explained why she changed the ending; “Because it's a
book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But
if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies
willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the
type of man who you want to keep alive?”
There is something noble and beautiful about someone who gives up their
life for sake of others. Watching Harold willingly go to his death just
for the sake of a good story brought a tear to my eye.
And then I thought of Jesus.
He was not corrupted by sin as we are; he did not have to die. He could
have lived forever on earth making our lives better by constantly doing
miracles and helping others but ultimately it would do us no good, we
would still die in our sin and receive God’s just judgment. Jesus willingly went to his death to give us so much more than a good story - forgiveness for our sins and life with him after death. Three days later He rose again and waits to receive us into his eternal kingdom when our heart gives out or we are hit by a bus.
- best romantic pun of all time in this movie too.
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