Recently, I read an article in a very popular magazine. The writer was discussing her experience of having a second round of Botox injections and noted this: “On my way there, I read a church marquee’s folksy but intrinsically terrifying warning about the perils of nonbelief in Jesus.”*
It was a passing remark, one that she did not address again. The point of the article was the draining and exhausting obsession of trying to look young. The piece was well-written and somewhat humorous but her sentence about the church sign intrigued me more than her preoccupation with Botox. She found the “terrifying warning about the perils of nonbelief in Jesus” folksy. In other words, the idea of a person dying because he/she did not believe in Jesus was received with a shrug of the shoulders. The subject was not interesting or useful to the writer. She was, instead, intent on finding the right doctor who could help rid her face of unwanted lines.
Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against Botox. I know several people who have had many injections and have no regrets. Botox is not the problem. The problem is that people spend more time trying to look young than trying to figure out what happens when they quit aging—that is, die! Botox is a temporary fix and the effects normally last 3-5 months. Death is forever. But people don’t like to think about death. And because they don’t like to think about it, they make up their own truths about God and heaven and hell. Hell isn’t real. God doesn’t exist. But if God does exist, certainly he would not send good people to hell. The important thing is to try to be good and maybe get into heaven—if there is one. And in the meantime, you might as well try to look good, too!
I wish everyone would read the book of Ecclesiastes. The writer, Solomon, is trying to figure out how to be happy and he tries everything! If Botox were a thing back then, he certainly would have done it! Solomon repeats over and over, “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!’”1 The word is also translated as vanity, futile, pointless, and useless. But the best translation of the word is temporary. Solomon exclaims, “Everything is temporary!” That’s the problem. Nothing in this world lasts. Like Botox, for example! Solomon writes, “Banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless (temporary).”2
It would be depressing if there were no solution to the temporary state of things, but there is! God! God is the only thing that lasts forever. There is no end to him. There is no end to his love for his creation. There is no end to life for those who believe in Jesus.
My fear is that many people, like this writer, read church marquees about the “terrifying warning about the perils of nonbelief in Jesus” and find them folksy. My prayer is that they would spend time considering the question of who God is because “God is love.”3 And as folksy as it may sound, it is true that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”4
And that, my friend, is the answer to the Botox crisis! Heaven is forever. There is no aging there!
*“A Quest for Botox” by Sarah Miller. The New Yorker. April 5, 2025. 1Ecclesiastes 1:2 2Ecclesiastes 11:10 31 John 4:16 4John 3:16