The Murder of Media

How many times a week do you watch someone get killed? Most of you will say "I've never seen someone get murdered! That's awful!" but here's another question: how many times a week do you watch a murder as entertainment? Your initial response is probably something like "That's sick! Who could watch a murder for FUN?!" But the truth is, we do it all the time.

 NCIS, CSI, Cold Case Files, SVU, Bones, the list goes on. These tv shows are what? You tell me! They're fascinating, right? But what are the consequences to watching these TV shows? You do realize they are specifically based on death. There would be no Special Agent Gibbs if there weren’t any dead Naval Officers. There’d be no Horatio if there weren’t raped, stabbed, dead women in a ditch somewhere. There’d be no “king of the lab” or Sealy Booth if there weren’t some defaced man whose identity was taken from him, down to erasing his fingerprints and attempting to burn his body.

Is that fun? Is it entertaining to watch people get killed? Is it interesting to seeing a body chopped up into an innumerable amount of tiny bits? Sounds sick when I put like that, doesn’t it? But Erika, I mean really, I watch because they solve the murders and serve justice! Oh really? What if they didn’t tell you who the victim was, or how the person was killed? Would you still be interested in finishing the show? No, because everything about the show rides on that single moment when a life is taken. The more details in the murder the better the plot, right? Sick. Horrific. Ghastly. Awful. Putrid. Disgusting. How can we sit by and not only watch, but enjoy watching MURDER! But it’s just a TV show. No. These types of things happen every day and watching these shows is numbing us against the horrifying horrendousness of a life being ripped out of the earth.

Do you still ache inside when you hear someone’s been killed? I don’t. I’ve become numb to death. When you read the story of Cain and Able in Genesis, do you see the wickedness of Cain? Do you see him murdering his own brother? My pastor showed a video of the comedian Tim Hawkins talking about The Flood and other huge, horrible events in the bible that “Aren’t in the Precious Moments Bible.” When you think of the flood you think of water and a boat with giraffes sticking their heads out and birds flying around. You don’t think of screaming, drowning, dying people and animals all over the earth.

What’s this say about how we view Christ’s sacrifice? How often do you say “Jesus died for me”? He D.I.E.D!!! Hello!!!!
 No more life,

 he stopped breathing,

his blood was flowing no more,

 his brain was not processing,

 he was dead.

A corps on a stick.

 But he didn’t just die. He was killed. If we become numb to death, to murder, we become numb to the great sacrifice God made. We become numb to how precious God sees a life. We become numb to the consequences of sin: “For the wages of sin is death”. If we undermine the horribleness of death, we undermine God’s power and the grace he’s given us. The life he gives to us.

As you watch your stories, think of what death means to you. Is it how you get your kicks? Or is it a beacon for the greatness of sin in our fallen world?