Live Longer, Live Better

The message of Easter for us is to live longer and better. People since the foundation of the world spoke about life, growth and better living. Even nature’s goal and purpose is to live longer and to share in the creation of a better world as everything blooms around us. This week I read something about the life in Japan. I discovered that in Japan, the average life expectancy is one of the highest in the world.

A 2008 survey revealed that Japan has more centenarians than any country in the world with 36,000 citizens aged 100 or older. That’s a huge increase from 1963; the first year the country started recording the number, when there were only 153 people in the centenarian category. Eighty-six percent of Japan’s current century-club members are women, with the oldest woman in the country being a 113-year-old from the island province of Okinawa. Incidentally, Okinawa has the largest concentration of centenarians in Japan, at 838 (that’s 61 for every 100,000 people). Compared to other nations, Japan’s longevity factor leaves the rest of the world looking positively sickly by comparison. Out of 1.3 billion people in China, for example, there are only 18,000 centenarians, while in the United States the ratio is about 10 per 100,000. Life expectancy in Japan is a full four years longer than in America.

What’s the secret to living a long life or, even better, living forever?
According to the experts in Japan we have to do this:

Dancing twice a week, exercising every day (at least 30 minutes), give up smoking, continue working (just a little) after your retirement.

Focus on social activity and family, keep a good diet, like eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables, a day and maintain a healthy weight.

We are Easter people. We are the people of the resurrection. We believe that by the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are reminded that God has not abandoned his creation. Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the restoration of all life on earth. We understand ourselves to be part of God’s mission of a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We care for ourselves. We care for each other. We care for the earth. Easter is a call to embrace the goodness of life. The whole point of the Christian life isn’t that we go to heaven to be with God but that God comes here to be with us: “Your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

As we dance the songs of life, as we take care of our bodies, as we embrace hope, reconciliation and healing, we proclaim the beauty of Easter. It does not matter if we are 10 years old or 90; we live each moment as an Easter moment knowing that by living abundantly every second we have defeated death until the eternal Easter comes.

Your Pastor,
Rev. Job Cobos