Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Death to Life

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

Found at the IMDB page.
Last week Agents of SHIELD shocked the world when they killed Agent May. "What!" Yep, they killed her. Then, they brought her back. She had been affected by the ghosts who have been walking around. A piece of her brain was processing non-stop and it's failure to stop would kill her. The only thing that Simmons and Radcliffe could come up with was to kill her...and revive her again.

This idea is not entirely new. I have seen other movies and shows do something like this before. They make it very dramatic and we when the person is revived, the organism or virus or tech has simply ended or left the body.

Death and resurrection are not a new thought to Christianity either. Jesus himself was killed and resurrected. Before that he brought back Lazurus from the dead. Yet He also expects us to deal with death. In Matthew 16:24 Jesus tells us that if we want to follow Him we must take up our own crosses in the process.

Romans 6:11 tells us: "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." But read on. Verse twelve says, "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires."

Agent May was under the influence of whatever this ghost touch does. She could not control it. She was deceived by it into thinking that everyone was against her. She was under it's control. That is what sin does to us. It deceives us and confuses us. 

Killing May seemed so extreme to Simmons. When asked if she was okay, she said: "Of course not!! We're about to kill May!" She could not imagine doing that to a friend. Often we feel like that. If I cut this out, will I be the same person? This is so extreme, do I really need to stop this? Can't I keep this sin for a bit? In the end, Simmons got her friend back as herself because of that crazy idea. Jesus assured us that he came that we might have life more abundantly (John 10:10). We do not have to earn our salvation from sin, but we will have to give up the sin itself in order to have life to the full.