Celebrity Death's and Our Need for God

The death of a celebrity is an amazing thing to me. We have had several lately. Ed McMahon, Vince Young, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, and, Michael Jackson all died within just a few days of each other. Many of us saw the images of people putting up memorials outside of NBC studios for McMahon, and Outside of a restaurant for Young. I imagine most of us saw at least some of the images from the Michael Jackson memorial. It is estimated that over 1 billion people watched at least some of it.

As humans, we are not good with mortality. We don’t handle death well. I know I don’t. If someone close to me dies, I weep and morn just like the next person. But I guess I wonder why we mourn so much over celebrities. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sad when people die, but I find the outpouring over celebrities interesting. After all, we have soldiers dying everyday in the Middle East but rarely do you hear a name even mentioned. What is it about celebrities?

We as humans have built in within us the need to attach ourselves to something. God made us that way. Some choose to attach themselves to family, others to a job, and others even to a celebrity. God put the need to “seek” in each and every heart he created (Acts 17:26-28). But the ultimate goal of this is that we would find HIM.

People are seekers buy our very nature. God has put it in our heart to seek that we might find him. When we see people “idolizing” celebrities to the point that they almost look as if they are “worshiping” them (I saw one person at the Michal Jackson funeral with their hands raised), this is a reflection of our “need” to worship.

Yet there is only one way the need to worship will be fulfilled in anyone’s life, and that is through the true worship of our almighty God. Again, God created us so that “men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:26-28)

It’s easy to attach ourselves to what we can see. But in reality, Michael Jackson didn’t know any of those people who were “lifting him up.” When he was alive, those who followed him did not have any “real” access to him. “Idol worship” will never fulfill the need for relationship which we seek. BUT…God knows our names, he created us with the ability to find him, and “he is not that far from each one of us.” That’s Good News!