I was thinking… How could Michael Jackson die?!Well, this may come as a shocker, but… Michael Jackson IS a man. And men do die.
The same week that Michael died many other celebrities died as well. Farrah Fawcett before him, Billy Mays after. And everyone was asking the same question that I was. How could they die? They had all the money in the world. Everyone knew their names. They had doctors living WITH them. Money enough to cure cancer. They had everything!
We have this concept in our country that celebrities are immortal. We say it all the time. They’re saying it right now, even as I view the memorial for Michael Jackson. “Michael, you will always be with us.”
But he won’t.
In our society, we become emotionally attached to our celebrities, like the Greeks were attached to their gods. The people lived vicariously through them, made them like men except better. The gods could live a raucous lifestyle with no consequence, as it seems our celebrities do. These gods had the same trials, and the same boredoms, and the same joys as men, but never died. They were idols made of myths and racy stories spun like our trashy tabloids. There were idols before them, made of wood and stone. And now, ours are made of dust just as we are made of dust. But sooner or later, dust returns to dust.
No matter what we continue to form our idols from, they will always be perishable.
In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon wrote that, “All is vanity and grasping for the wind” (Ecc. 2:17b). Solomon was incredibly aware of his own mortality, even though he was the richest king in the Bible. He knew exactly what it meant to be rich and famous, to be a celebrity. And yet, he knew that there’s more to life than that. He knew that he too would die, just like every other man had died, and so he used his life to write the wisdom that God gave him. He made a legacy not only with his riches and his temple, but with the gift of God’s wisdom.
One thing that Michael Jackson’s death has taught me is that legacy really can live on beyond our own physical deaths. Though Michael may be dead himself, his music, what he dedicated his whole life to, will undoubtedly continue to thrive in people.
The biggest reason why I think we are taking these celebrity deaths to heart is because they remind us of our own mortality. If the men and women who we thought were immortal can die, then so will we.
The silver lining in these deaths, though, is the celebration of legacies. After I found out about Michael’s death, I went straight home and spent an hour watching the music videos I used to watch as a kid. Seeing Michael perform in hindsight makes you so much more aware of his talent. His songs are more valuable. Every memory of listening to his CDs in the car or covering my eyes watching “Thriller” all seem so much more important. Even throughout his memorial, people were singing the songs he sang, reading the words he spoke, and remembering the times they spent with him.
And I started to think… what will my legacy be? It would be difficult to leave a legacy as wide as Michael’s, but I hope mine goes as deep. And I hope that my legacy points to something beyond myself. After all, I am only made of dust. Instead, I want my life to point to something Everlasting and Real. Something… or really, someONE who is bigger than I could ever be. I hope that any words that I write, any songs that I sing, any memories I make with friends, and the life that I instill in my own children will all point to the imperishable God I know and love. If not, then isn’t it all just vanity and grasping for the wind? If our lives don’t point to something eternal, then aren’t we all just writing a perishable legacy?
