Rescued by Grace

I am often mocked for my unabashed love of Lost. I can't help it. When a show, especially this current and final season, speaks so beautifully and clearly eternal messages wrapped in narrative (hey, isn't that a parable?), what is not to love?

This past week, Ben, the villain we have loved to hate for five seasons needed to be rescued. He was set to die for his sins. He deserved it. Not only was he guilty, he was unapologetically so. He gets a chance at escape, and all he has to do to regain his control of the Island, according to the Artist Formerly Known as John Locke, was kill his pursuer, Iliana, and go to the smaller island.

But Ben, gun sighted on Iliana, confesses. Yeah, he killed Jacob, but he did it because he felt rejected, he felt he had lost everything for a 'distant diety.' And why join 'Locke?' Because thats the only person who would have him. Iliana says she would have him, lowers her gun, and essentially forgives. Ben doesn't go to 'Locke,' he follows Iliana. He is rescued.

We sin. We have our reasons. We feel hurt, lonely, abandoned, unfulfilled, angry, doubtful, or just plain apathetic. We have sinned so much that we don't really know how to live without doing the things that kill us. Like Ben lies and kills, we drink, or yell, or endulge, or eat, or stare, or stew. We do it without thinking because it has come to define us. We are not our sin, but if we do it long enough, our sin becomes us. We get swallowed up and consumed by these urges and temptations. We do them not because we want to, but because we don't want to not do them. We are captive to our own desires, and they slowly kill all that is good in and around us. Ben lost his daughter and leadership, the most precious things to him, because of his sins- motivated by his pride. What are you losing even now?

I'd say that even in the midst of our sin, we know we are wrong in an intellectual way. But because we are slaves to our faults, we lack the will, maybe even the ability to get free. Something must unshackle us. Something must shake us from our apathy.

Grace.

Getting what we don't deserve. Being rescued by the goodness of the Forgiver. Ben deserved to die and be buried in the grave he dug for himself, but he got to live. We deserve to die and be separated from God. But we get to live. What Ben does with his second chance remains to be seen.

What are we doing with ours?