We're All Still Here

The sun came up in the east this morning.

Now, maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, but after all of the mourning, wailing and gnashing of teeth at the funeral of Michael Jackson on Tuesday, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. Surely life can’t just go on, not after the “King of Pop” was buried. Not after MJ was put in the ground. Not after “the greatest performer ever without a doubt” (I actually heard that phrase verbatim twice in the past 24 hours) would never be heard from again.

Why were there no earthquakes?

How can rain still fall from the sky?

I mean no disrespect to the dead. But on Tuesday, you couldn’t log onto the Internet or flip through the channels on TV without running into wall-to-wall coverage of his funeral. An alien visiting from another planet would have thought that we were burying the man who found the cure to cancer, or solved the world’s financial crises or at least had figured out the secret as to why the same number of socks never come out of the dryer that you put in.

Silly alien. No, we were simply engaged in one of our frequent celebrity love-fests. Here’s a guy who’s last record was released in 2001 and his last hit was in 1996. He was frequently the butt of late night comics’ jokes as he demonstrated increasingly bizarre behavior. He looked more like a casualty of some natural disaster than a mega-star. And yet people—including influential, even powerful people—were falling over themselves to shed tears and offer condolences on his behalf.

Again, I don’t want to seem insensitive, but it all seems a little much. I think of some of the dear old saints I’ve known through the years who have made great sacrifices in their service to the Kingdom who left this world with barely a whisper. No TV coverage. No reporters, politicians or athletic stars bid them farewell. No Congressional Resolutions were passed in their honor.

These wonderful folks recorded no number one albums. But some were faithful teachers of the Scripture. Some loved and taught our kids. Some baked pies or drove the church bus or cleaned the restrooms in the church. Some visited the sick in the hospitals or took food to shut-ins.

I don’t know for sure what Michael Jackson’s relationship with the Lord was. I was under the impression that he shared the faith of his parents and was a Jehovah’s Witness, although over the past few years there have been a lot of stories about his interest in Islam or “spirituality” in general. None of that gives me much reason to believe that he knew Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

And if in fact he was not a Christian, then I hope that he enjoyed his crowds, homes, cars, planes and riches (though all the evidence suggests he really didn't). Because, apart from Christ, it’s all downhill from here (literally).

But for those Christ-followers I mentioned earlier, even without the fame and fortune of this world, they can say along with the Psalmist, But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself. (Psalm 49:15)

In light of all that, who would you rather be?