Freeform Friday 08 - This Is It

I saw This Is It today and it brought back a lot of the same feelings I had when I first heard that Michael Jackson had died. Allegedly, Michael Jackson wasn’t the greatest person and may have done some terrible things. In spite of that, though, his music still provided the sound track for my childhood and I still enjoy listening to his music today. This Is It provided me an opportunity to listen to Michael Jackson’s music as I never had before; I never saw MJ in concert and the movie provided a glimpse of that experience for me. As I was talking about the movie with a friend afterwards, we were both saddened by what could have been; had the concerts in London been successful, perhaps we would have had the opportunity to see MJ live ourselves.

I think that was the feeling I experienced most while watching the movie: remorse. It’s difficult to defend feeling remorse over a polarizing figure like Michael Jackson; but it wasn’t necessarily remorse for Michael being gone, but for the music being gone. I can listen to his albums on my iPod, over and over again; I can even download the compilation album for This Is It that has a few new tracks. But, in the end, it won’t ever be the same as listening to a brand new MJ album or hearing his music live in concert. Mostly it’s remorse over what could have been, which I suppose is what remorse is all about.

I’ve felt a lot of remorse in my life, mainly over choices that I’ve seen some of my friends make. It is difficult to see something that could have been, something that could have been great, fade away in the light of consequences from bad decisions. God can redeem those situations and heal the brokenness, but I can never fully forget what could have been and feel some amount of remorse for never seeing that come to fruition.

I suppose we’re all just trying to get back to what could have been, though; trying to get back to what humanity and the whole of creation were supposed to be before sin. We should all feel some level of remorse for the destruction sin has wrought on this world but find hope in the person of Jesus Christ. We may not be what we were supposed to be, but through grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can get closer; we can help get this world closer to what it was supposed to be. And even though we may have remorse for what was lost, we can have hope for what is to come.