"Welcome to Aquarius"

It should be some space ride!  Maybe it will be like some scene in a movie, our spaceship hurtling through space at the speed of light. Or maybe there will be some sort of teleporter to which we just request ‘beam me up’.  Put it this way: jetting to the south of France for the weekend will be so old school. Three hours to Florida will be something we laugh about, like comparing automobiles to the horse and buggy era. Getting there will be a real blast, pun intended.

The “there” of which I speak is 40 lightyears away, in the constellation Aquarius, and it consists of “seven alien worlds about the size of earth”.  These “worlds” are the latest of about 3,500 “exoplanets” scientists know about, of which about several handfuls are considered “potentially habitable.”

I take great comfort in hearing of these discoveries, but probably for a different reason than the scientists.  When I think about the Bible’s promised revelation of the “New Heaven and New Earth”, when “Time” ends, I am excited yet perplexed. Where will all of the people in all of those graves live? I mean, even if you raise up the ocean floors and flatten out the mountains, is there room for everyone?  But now I see what may be going on in the universe. God is preparing a whole lot of “new earths” in the “new heavens”. We all know that our existence on this earth depends on a very precise calculation of distance from the Sun. A little closer and we burn up; a little farther and we freeze. So, all God needs to do is move these exoplanets a tiny bit and, there you have it: enough “earths” for everyone!

Just like some people like to live in the moderate temperatures and some in the hot or cold temperatures now, we get to choose which planet to live on. And then we go visit family or friends in distant places for a long weekend, if we have weekends.  And getting there will be half the fun.  It will be unparalleled joy to be welcomed to heaven, but a close second will be the wonder of hearing a loved one greet us with the words, “Welcome to Aquarius!”

(Source: WSJ Feb. 23, 2017, Robert Lee Hotz)