Almost forty years ago the movie “Cocoon”  was released. As with most movies, if  you watch this with a discerning eye, filter out the foul language and humanistic teachings, you will discover that the basic plot or story line is taken directly from the Bible. This is nothing new. Much of the literature throughout history can be traced to the Bible for its origins. This particular movie is an account of the free gift of eternal life given to man.

The story is set in a retirement community in Florida. A couple of old men sneak into an abandoned house to use the swimming pool. Then some “people”, who are actually aliens, rent the house. They want to use the pool to revitalize some of their fellow aliens that were left behind thousands of years ago in cocoon-like pods at the bottom of the sea. They treat the pool with some chemicals and forces that will accomplish this task. However, the next time these old men sneak into the pool, they find that it has a rejuvenating effect on them. It is the long sought after fountain of youth, it gives them a new life. As the story develops, more and more people start using the pool and benefiting from its effects, but they use up all of its “power.” The aliens are unable to accomplish their mission, and must return. However, they offer to take a group of old people with them, promising them eternal life. The old folks naturally accept this free gift gladly. One old man, explaining to his grandson that he would be going away, tells the boy that he was going to a place where “we’ll never get sick, we won’t get any older and we’ll never die.” Of course they wanted to go!

’m sure you see the parallels to the Biblical revelation of God’s Plan of salvation. The pool is like our Baptisms. It gives us a new life, and should have a constant rejuvenating effect on us. In Baptism, we are “born again” as the Children of God. This should always empower us for our lives of service. We should feel like new men and women, since we have had all of our sins washed away.

Lot’s of religions include the teaching of eternal life, but only the Bible tells us that it is a free gift, earned for us by Jesus. In this world we have pain, and suffering and hardships, we grow old and die, all the result of sin and disobedience. This is not only because of  the sin we have inherited from Adam and Eve. We keep on sinning, daily. The only thing we deserve from God is hell, damnation, and eternal torment. But our loving God did not abandon us.  He provided the means of escape through the living bread, His Son, Jesus Christ our Savior. He paid the price for all of our sins on the cross. He took our punishment upon Himself in order to pay the price for our iniquities.

JOHN 6:41-51   At this the Jews began to grumble about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?  How can He now say, `I came down from heaven’?”  “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets:  `They will all be taught by God.’  Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me.  No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God;  only He has seen the Father.  I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.  I am the bread of life.  Your forefathers ate manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If a man eats of this bread, he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The Bread of Life  gave Himself “for the life of the world.”  By His selfless act of love and mercy, we are saved. In real life, just as in that movie, the saving comes from an outside source, not from ourselves. The sad thing is that people are more willing to believe in a fantasy like that movie than they are to believe the fact of eternal life as a free gift from God to all who believe.

Jesus was and is the real deal. He earned us a place where “we’ll never get sick, we won’t get any older and we’ll never die.” He paid the price for us to have all that.