What Weekend at Bernie’s Taught Me About Christianity

Although it won’t make any “top ten” list of theologically correct movies, Weekend at Bernie’s does vividly teach one very important truth:

Despite your best efforts, there is a difference between someone who is dead and someone who is alive.

Think about it. Two guys go to a lot of trouble to make a dead guy look alive. They put clothes and sunglasses on him just like a person who’s alive. They talk with him. He goes to parties and out on a speedboat. He does a lot of things that live people do.

What’s more, everyone thinks he’s alive, from just casual acquaintances to his girlfriend to the hit man who is intent on killing him(again).

Yea, everything seems to be smooth sailing, except for one little detail: he’s dead.

So, what exactly is this teaching me about Christianity?

Simply this: Bernie has a lot in common with most people, including many people that attend a church each Sunday. They may dress like a Christian, talk like a Christian, hang out with Christians, and do “Christiany” things like tithe and serve the church. They may convince a lot of people that they are a Christian, maybe even themselves.

Yea, everything seems to be smooth sailing, except for one little detail: they’re dead.

No amount of dressing up or going through the motions was going to bring Bernie to life, and no amount of religious activity will bring a dead soul to spiritual life. That’s exactly what Jesus was getting at when he told the religious leader Nicodemus “You must be born again” in John chapter 3.

Don’t settle for a good religious “life” for yourself, or for anyone else you know. What you do or what you appear to be on the outside really doesn’t matter: it’s whether God has taken the dead spiritual heart of stone that you were born with and remade it into a living heart (Ezekiel 36:26).

Have you experienced God remaking your heart? Have you been born again? Then thank God, and seek to grow & live as someone now fully alive.

Or maybe you feel like Bernie, going through all the motions of being a good person, but somehow knowing that something is missing? Maybe what’s missing is a heart that is truly reborn. If so, then watching this video may help show you the path to a life that will last more than a weekend.