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246984.jpgJust a few short hours before American Idol went on the air with its San Diego auditions tonight, the news broke that Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old actor best known for his work in A Knight’s Tale and The Patriot was found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

How ironic that even as news coverage of Ledger’s death runs together with another batch of wanna-be singer/stars, we are still prone to miss the correlation between idolatry and despair.

Aspiring artists appear on American Idol, hoping for the limelight of Hollywood. Many of the singers have made an idol of the American Dream, worshipping the idea of success and glamor. The singers that make it big then become idols to the fans that adore them.

And yet, like all idolatries, what is sweet to the tongue is cancerous to the body. The culture chews up and spits out these young “stars.” How the famous have fallen!

How many Britney Spears-like cases do we need to see before we stop wanting to live their lives? How many young men like Heath Ledger have to die in despair in the prime of life before we will stop idolizing movie stars? Why do we continue to fall for the Evil One’s lie that fortune brings freedom, that money brings happiness, that fame brings satisfaction? 

Worldly success does not solve the problems of young men and women. It exacerbates them. The idolatries of our heart lead us further into the darkness of our souls until we are captive to our own desires.

My heart sunk when I saw the body bag carrying young Heath Ledger’s body being wheeled toward an ambulance. Heath was just two years older than me. How tragic that a life would be cut so short! But even more tragic is that countless people will continue to idolize Ledger and envy the sad, unfulfilled lives of Hollywood stars like him.

In March, we will celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – whose thirty-three years on the earth split time into B.C. and A.D. It is because of Jesus, his perfect life, death for our sins, and triumphant resurrection that we can be delivered from the grip of the idols that hold our hearts captive. 

I can’t help but mourn tonight – not because I was a great fan of Heath Ledger, but because I have such a burden for twenty-somethings like him who (without the fame and fortune) are living out their days from drink to drink, pleasure to pleasure, distraction to distraction – without the hope of eternal life or the purpose that comes from being a citizen of God’s Kingdom.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the ones who take part in the suffering around them.

Blessed are those who run with arms wide open to the places of deepest pain in our world.

Blessed are those who grieve with the grieving.

Blessed are those who are not calloused at the pain we see through the flickering images on our television sets.

Blessed are those whose hearts beat faster and whose tears flow more freely whenever our thoughts go to the coming Kingdom and the Resurrected King.

Yes, we will be comforted. For we know that our labor is not in vain.

written by Trevin Wax © 2008  Kingdom People blog 

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