Anastasia. An innocent Russian princess and her family are brutally imprisoned and shot. Or at least that's the official party line. Anastasia's remains cannot be found. Rumors about Anastasia's survival rise. Supporters of the old dynasty hope that perhaps Anastasia has survived. They hope and pray that they might find the right Anastasia. Multiple individuals come forward claiming to be her. None garner the full trust of the people. None are deemed to be the lost princess. Despite the failure at finding proof of Anastasia's survival, rumors live on. At least, they live on, until their last heartbeat is silenced with the discovery of Anastasia's remains in 2007. She was shot at the same time as the rest of her family-just buried with her brother in another grave. Yet I want her to have survived. Until I knew that her grave had been discovered, I had always hoped that she had lived. I want her to have beaten death and to have avoided the iron vice of the Red Army, the cold brutal men, much older than her, who had imprisoned and killed an unarmed family. There's something about cruelty and power that makes us want to reject it. There's also something about hope that makes us attracted to it, even when we are not sure of how solidly it is grounded.
Dinosaurs. They lived millions of years ago. If my biology degree serves me well, I think they lived around 65 million years ago. As a child, I read stories about dinosaurs as somewhat of fairytales. And I loved those stories. I pretended I was a dinosaur, I wished that I could have a pet dinosaur, I hoped that they could come back to life and be real again. Out of sight, out of mind. I didn't think too much about dinosaurs for the decade of my teens and early twenties. Then last weekend I found myself face to face with the skull of a massive triceratops. I was shocked. Dinosaurs were real. This fossil proved that some creature had lived inside that framework millions of years ago. It felt like seeing my favorite pair of sneakers wash up on the shore after having lost them on the beach years ago. It was like a memory coming to life. I had hoped, I had forgotten, and then I had seen and remembered.
Jesus. He lived 2000 years ago. His remains have not been found. Rumors about his survival have created an entire way of life for millions of people. Supporters of his life hope that he has survived. They hope and pray that the will meet him in the afterlife. Many have come forward making claims about his claims. I want him to have survived. I hope he did. This is a cold, cruel world and the Romans' machinations put a man who never championed violence to death. Like in Anastasia's case, I wanted darkness and cruelty to lose because I wanted there to be an innocence and good that survives. I hope in Jesus, but sometimes I wonder if I know Jesus. Was he really real? He was as real as the dinosaurs in the sense that he walked this earth. But was he really real in a way that stretches beyond the reality of the dinosaurs? Or is he more like Anastasia-a carrier of hope, but not truth?
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