Angels and Demons

Have you ever noticed how our culture has a fascination with angels and demons?

It seems that people are okay with having a benevolent individual to look out for them, kind of like a geni who can rub a bottle and make all dreams and wishes come true. Or a demon with the capabilities of  causing an individual to act out irrationally, perhaps the catalyst behind all wrong human actions.

You see, both angels and demons remove personal responsibility from actions and outcomes, and thus are much easier to square with modern depictions of reality than an all knowing Creator. There isn't any accountability. Only a benefactor or a force, either for good or evil, completely removed from the individual.

My grandmother's favorite Christmas symbol is an angel, its enveloping wings welcoming one with open arms. It is as if an angel has the ability to erase sin and undo wrong. In most Hollywood films, the angel  grants a second chance. A chance for renewal. A do-over.

In a recent movie I watched, A Little Bit of Heaven, Whoopi Goldberg is Marley's (Kate Hudson's) angel. Marley is recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and the Whoopi character gives her three wishes.


Immediately, Marley tells the angel her first two wishes: She wants to fly, and she wants a million dollars. But her third wish she puts on hold. Like a fairy godmother in Cinderella, Marley's wishes are granted. But they prove to be largely unsatisfying. Until her third wish: to fall in love.

Eventually, Marley meets a sweet young man, her doctor, named Julian. As they take an evening stroll, Marley asks Julian if he believes in God. He says no. Her reply, "You know what, I'm really jealous of people who believe in God, of people who are so sure where they are going after they die."

The conversation ends there, and you get an inkling that she might have wasted her third wish. Of course, the theme of love is something that almost every human being can grasp or at least have a cursory understanding of. The love of a Savior, they long for, but prefer to stick with the wish-granting angel instead.

As the story takes it's predictable course of action, Marley dies right after she professes her love for Julian and Julian finally says that he does, in fact, love her, too! Her eyes close. The music becomes somber and she passes away.

Despite the fact that I knew she would ultimately die in the end, I found myself crying over her passing. She was godless... but at least she had an angel, right? That's the message the movie sent. And as all the people were standing around mourning her death, I couldn't help but cry for their emptiness.

Before her death, Marley sweetly remarks, "I want to put the F-U-N back in funeral." And rejoice in her memory they did. But the ending was so empty.

You see, things are different when a Christian passes on. Rather than worshipping the legacy of the past person, we worship the saving grace and mercy of our Savior. A person's passing is a time of rejoicing in Christ's sacrifice, not in human achievement. There is an acknowledgement and a surety that God, not just angels and heaven, do exist!

The renewal, the do-over, if you will, comes through Christ's death on the cross, long before you or I were ever born. In choosing Christ, there is renewal, there is sanctification. There is assurance and finality in our fate.

Culture's recognition of the ethereal points to the understanding that Christ has written eternity on the hearts of all men. But it's complete denial of any deity speaks to it's confusion. Perhaps we aren't making the message clear enough.

A recognition of the ethereal yet a denial of a deity. That is one of the many cultural twists on Biblical principles that manipulates truth into a cultural lie.

Marley had good reason to be jealous of people of faith. "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine..." is something all Christians openly acknowledge. I wish that Marley had found that, that the Hollywood producers would have recognized her true desires. But I guess that wish will have to wait for another day.