The OK was recently given for Australia's first cryonics facility—a site for storing frozen bodies awaiting the day when medicine provides life beyond the grave.

Philip Rhoades plans to construct the facility near Cowra, in central-western New South Wales, to provide a storage facility for himself and his family. “There are just too many interesting and exciting things to do and see for one lifetime,” Rhoades says. Hence, his desire to be frozen until he can be brought back to life.

No one has yet been successfully revived through cryonics, but supporters cite recent advances in molecular biology and nanotechnology as reasons that current problems with freezing and rewarming bodies will be overcome in the future.

You see, apparently the cryonic process can cause irreparable damage to the body’s cells, mainly due to ice crystals forming inside and outside the cells, salts and solutions of the body during the freezing process. For other biological samples, some of these problems can be overcome through the use of 'cryo-protectants', like glycerol, which lower the freezing temperature of water and halt the crystals forming. Some cryonicists hope that by replacing blood with cryo-protectants soon after death, more parts of the body can be protected from freezing and thawing damage. There’s still a hurdle here though—cryo-protectants themselves are generally toxic!

While the Cowra facility has only been approved for the Rhoades family, in the future he expects a range of people to be interested in the service, including those who are “dissatisfied with the ‘natural’ duration of a human life".

Me thinks Rhoades might have some interest in his product. Then again, maybe he wont.

I was talking with Narelle, one of our volunteers here, during the week. “Who’d want to be brought back to life in a different era,” she said, “without any of your friends around you, surrounded by a society you didn’t know and a culture you couldn’t relate to.” You’d probably hate the music, the TV programs, and if you thought programming the VCR was the challenge of your previous lifetime, imagine the new technology awaiting you!

There’s no denying our desire to cheat the grave though. Cryonics stands in a long line of methods to extend life, reduce age and attain perpetual youth (or at least their impression). There’s cosmetic surgery to remove wrinkles and dyes to hide grey hair; even child rearing can be an attempt to ensure our family name isn’t removed from history. Advertisers understand this longing for eternal youth—like the ad I saw for a breakfast cereal which showed an elderly man running towards the beach with his surfboard. As sociologist Peter Berger says, humanity has shouted a universal “No!” to death. We don’t want it to come to our loved ones. And we’d rather avoid it too.

“I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

The words may be familiar to you. It’s one of the final sentences uttered by Jesus as he hung next to two criminals at his crucifixion. One of the criminals had sneered at him, saying, “If you’re really the Christ, save yourself and us now!” But the other criminal had possessed a softer heart, realised he was being punished for real crimes while Jesus was innocent. “Jesus,” he had whispered, “remember me when you come back to rule.” This guy longed for life too, and, despite all current appearances, somehow believed the Nazarene hanging next to him held the way.

If we ever do get cryonics to work, what kind of body will we be revived into? Hopefully they’ll fix the arthritis, eyesight and hearing loss at the same time! And you do hope whatever company’s involved pays their power bill. You wouldn’t want to thaw out one long weekend!

The Christian hope is for a much more complete experience—a new body, a renewed soul, a perfected heart at a future resurrection. And if that criminal saw something real, and if Jesus’ promise was something true, we may already have the ‘technology’ to live forever. “Remember me,” the criminal said.

“I will,” Jesus replied.