All Flesh is Like Grass…
I was sitting in my office yesterday afternoon when I heard one of my co-workers loudly announce that Michael Jackson had died. I didn’t really believe her, so I looked online to find that he had not actually died, but was in a coma at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. CNN had a helicopter hovering over the hospital (presumably in case Michael Jackson awoke from his coma and came moonwalking out the front door) and they had another helicopter over his house. A crowd had gathered outside the gates of his rented home and was collectively distraught at the thought of Michael Jackson’s potential demise. Wolf Blitzer broke into that scene with the announcement that several news organizations were now reporting that the pop icon was dead. It was a truly sad moment.
I remember listening to Thriller so many years ago and watching hours of MTV just to get a glimpse of the 13 minute music video that was thought to be the best ever done up to that point in music video history. I remember trying out my moonwalk in my room just in case I ever found myself in a dance off with my enemies. I still have ABC on my iPod and my kids like rocking out to it from time to time.
It is not an understatement to say that Michael Jackson was larger than life for many. He was a superstar before superstars were so common. The news media followed his every move and was there to document his tremendous success as well as his bizarre falls from grace (like hanging his infant son over the edge of a hotel balcony; or getting so much plastic surgery that his nose started to fall off while simply running around on stage; or his hair catching on fire during Pepsi commercials; or all the ridiculous issues with kids at his Neverland Ranch). And now he is gone.
Whenever something like this happens to someone the world esteems so highly, I am reminded immediately of a passage of Scripture in Isaiah 40 that reads, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” I am reminded that so much of what we care about in our lives is so fleeting. So much of what we think is important fades like a morning mist. But God and His Word remain. I just want to be someone who banks on what lasts.
#1 from Harry Dyck on June 29, 2009
I feel and believe that when we can touch, see or feel something it is a lot easier to have faith or hope in it. For example if we buy a lottery ticket we get the sense that we could be rich on that day but we in fact should or could feel that way everyday. God says what’s mine is yours and we know that God does not need our money to be rich. If we are in god and of god than we should or could feel rich every waking moment of our life but God hasn’t been on TV or sold millions of albums nor done the famous moon walk, at least not for the world to see, feel or touch. Sadly enough Michael Jackson was an idol instead of an icon to a lot of people