Music vs. Curses

Greetings Scholars and Warriors!

Found at: http://www.eonline.com/news/847431/hook-s-song-from-the-once-upon-a-time-musical-episode-is-here-it-s-a-swashbuckling-delight

This season we have seen many shows adding music for special episodes. This happened for the Supergirl/Flash crossover in March and recently we saw this on Once Upon a Time. OUaT gave us the more interesting one, though. During the flashbacks for this episode, we saw Snow White, Charming, the Evil Queen, Hook, and a few others singing their hearts out.

Spoilers ahead.

They woke up finding themselves singing due to a spell after Snow White had wished for protection for her unborn baby. As they sang, they noticed that the music was affecting their world in unexpected ways. Specifically, it was affecting the Evil Queens hold on them and her power. As they sang, her attacks were far less effective.

Music is something the Bible encourages us toward. The first song in the Bible was a Psalm written by Moses wife after the parting of the Red Sea. It was a celebratory song. Decades later, David used music to calm down King Saul when he was tormented by a spirit. The story is found in 1 Samuel 16:14-23. In verse 14 the spirit is described with a word that has been translated as both "harmful" and "evil".

"Whenever the spirit from God would come on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him." 1 Sam. 16:23 

David went on to write many Psalms, or spiritual songs, we would use in worship. The New Testament would also use songs. Paul is believed to have quoted a song in Philippians 2:6-11. He often encouraged us to use spiritual songs as encouragement to each other.

The above story is significant and a little strange. Yet it shows God is masterful in both creation and grace. Saul had been leading Israel away from God and flat out disobeying Him. Early on in that story we find out that God's spirit had left him because of this. He sent the spirit to torment Saul as a form of judgement, yet had the grace to allow music to provide relief. What this does show us is that music is powerful in the spiritual realm.

We don't talk much about spiritual warfare but it is a real thing. I have heard stories from people on missions who have been in situations where music was used to help heal with a person who was demonically possessed. I have heard other stories as well about music bringing relief or even cults using music against Christians.

The role of music as worship is to be a tool or a voice for us to express ourselves to God. It is useful for helping knowledge go from our heads to our hearts and bringing relief to us. I have been in multiple situations where I went to church frustrated with life and having a hard time singing, but yet the music would help me refocus and it would bring relief in the middle of my frustration.

Next time you feel depressed, spiritually oppressed, or frustrated; maybe you should put on some music. There are plenty of worship CDs out there and you can find many worship songs on various music sites as well as You Tube. Sing along and let God use the music to give you peace.

Jekyll and Regina Fail

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

Quick announcement, Nerd Chapel is pleased to announce that we will be doing a Sunday Morning Service at JAFAX in Grand Rapids, MI June 26. If you are at the con, come join us! We'll be in Panel room 1 at 10am.

http://www.tvfanatic.com/gallery/regina-grieves-for-robin-once-upon-a-time-s5e22/

Regina had had it. She was sick of her dark side. Sick of her past as the Evil Queen. Yes, I am referring to Once Upon a Time. Disney has a penchant for showing us moments when people realize they need to change. Normally these are heroes like the Beast or Aladdin. But now the Evil Queen is joining that crowd on OUaT.

WARNING: Spoilers for the recent season finale of Once upon a Time.

A number of our heroes found themselves in a new land in the recent season finale. A land for people wandering out of other lands. I was liking it as it had a steampunk feel but yet there seems to be a lot of stories to work from in this place. In another part of the finale they had found a bunch more books just like the book that started it all, except that these books all had different stories. I want to see more of this land! I think this is what Neverland should have been in this show.

Our friends found themselves taken by someone in an insane asylum. A servant on the premises wanted to help them but the warden wanted to keep them locked up. Although he did find a use for them so he let them escape. Here is the thing....the warden and the servant were the same man. Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hide. Perhaps they come from the land of science we saw briefly a few seasons ago? Well, the good Doctor had finally found a serum that would allow him to fully separate from his darkness and not go through transformations any more. But this meant both of them would be walking around...looking each other in the face, and challenging each other.

After they fully escaped and were back in our land, Regina was just sick of her sin and darkness. Doctor Jekyll had some of his serum left. So she took it. Facing her old self literally face to face, she reached in and pulled out the heart of her evil self and destroyed it. In a way this fits with Jesus teaching. In Luke 9:23 he tells us we must take up our crosses, die to ourselves, and follow Him. Did you notice a difference though? Jekyll's way involves either a: allowing the sin to run free or b: killing someone with your bare hands. And here is the thing, b doesn't work. The Evil Queen seemed to die at that point, but she did not.

What we are called to do is to die to our own sin, but to allow God to work in us for our own change and growth.

""I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galatians 2:20

"Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:1-2

If you saw the  Finale, you know that now they have Mr. Hide and his friends in Storybrooke and the Evil Queen lose out in the rest of the world. Fortunately, God has other ways for us to each deal with our dark side.

Hook and Gray

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

Last night I watched a few shows with my Mom, including The Librarians and Once Upon a Time. Interestingly, both of these shows focused on darkness or sin in our lives in some form. Some spoilers ahead.

Found on the "Once Upon a Time" FB page.

In Once Upon a Time, we find a town panicking as multiple Dark Ones approach townspeople for what you might call tagging them. They are all given a mark targeting them to be pulled down into the Underworld. You see, the Dark Ones can only stay if they are replaced by someone in the Underworld. Somehow, Emma gets through to Killian, who is now one of the Dark Ones. He pulls all of the darkness, from all of them, into himself in an attempt to gather it into one place to be destroyed. I won't tell you here if it worked or not.

Found on "The Librarians" FB page.

We see a different take on sin in The Librarians. They come across a club where people are stricken with consequences of actions they did not commit or experience. A girl who is walking with her friends is thrown several yards and injured as if being hit by a car. A boy almost dies from a drug overdose without taking any drugs. As they investigate this club they meet Dorian Gray. Dorian has taken his ability to pass his consequences on to others and digitized it, using pictures taken of people in the club. He used his own vanity to gain immortality. This way he can live as long as he wants and do whatever he wants with no consequences. There were some other antics to enjoy in this episode, but I won't ruin them for you.

Darkness does exist in real life. You know that, right? We call it other things. We call it "mistakes" or "poor decisions" and once in a while we are honest and call it "sin". The good news for us is that we don't have to worry about beating the darkness. Jesus already did that.

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8

Jesus chose to be more like Killian (aka Captain Hook). He accepted a painful death on the cross. Killian deserved the punishment. He had spent years pirating and killing. Jesus had not. Jesus didn't kill anyone or steal from anyone. He chose to come to Earth, give us some instructions about love and respect and responsibility, and then he accepted death to take our spiritual consequences and give us what we don't deserve: access to God the Father and an infilling of the Holy Spirit.

God is not going to settle for us living a life of sin with no consequences. Jesus did not die to turn you into Dorian Gray, but to enable you to repent. Later in Romans, Paul says: 

"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning to increase grace? BY NO MEANS! We are those who have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:1,2

I do think there is a difference between spiritual consequences and natural consequences and I do think we still have to face the natural ones. The Book of James is quite honest about natural consequences of our actions. This repentance thing isn't easy, but reliance upon God helps a lot.

I encourage you to read all of Romans 5 and 6 as it pulls together our faith with Christ's work on the cross to show how we can receive cleansing from Him to live in righteousness.