Warning: Spoilers!
As a 20-something-year-old woman, one of the things I enjoy is going to the movies and seeing chick flicks with my friends. Keeping that in mind, it’s no surprise that I was really excited to go see one of the newer movies out, "Me Before You."
As I sat in the movie theatre watching the credits roll, I couldn’t help wondering why someone would think of a plot such as the one in the movie. It was so hopeless. It was depressing.
Now, granted, I knew going into the movie that the male lead would end up dead by the end. I just didn’t realize how it would play out. I was expecting that he became ill and died from a compromised immune system. What I didn’t expect was that he would choose to have an assisted suicide. I also didn’t expect him to ask the woman he loved to be there with him in the seconds before he passed away. It was surreal. How could someone have so little hope that the only thing they could think of to end their hopelessness was to die?
Watching this movie opened my eyes to the hopelessness that people are feeling today and the state of today’s world. Not once in the movie did the male lead question life after death or the existence of an afterlife — it was a simple “this person wants to die so they will and that’s the end of it” plot. Never did any of the characters question whether there was a God or an eternity waiting for them.
This is one of the problems with our thinking today. We see the here and now and don’t look past what place we are in at the moment to see the hope there is after this life. The hope that Christ offers us.
As a Christian, this movie has challenged me to not only live in such a way that people will wonder what the difference is, but to also ask the tough questions of people. Now is not the time for lukewarm Christians who live life without making a difference. Now is the time for hope, especially with what is happening in the world. People are dying from all different circumstances. When the world is hurting and there are so many questioning what the point of life is, Christians need to be there to answer.
There is so much hope in Christ that not many people know about. When bad things happened Jesus didn’t tell the people “See? This is what you get for being sinners.” No, he humbly became one of us and died for us because he knew we could never make it on our own. He is the true hope this world so desperately needs, and it’s time we started pointing to him.
“This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.” – 1 Timothy 4:10 NLT
