I really never thought too much about Michael Jackson. He is a year and a half older than I am but his music never had the same impact on me as did, say, the Beatles. For those who are 10 to 15 years younger than me, I can understand Michael Jackson’s influence. From age 10 to 20, music is probably one of the greatest shapers of our lives.
When Michael Jackson made the news, I felt nothing other than pity for him. He was living proof that money can’t buy you love or make you happy.
Now that Jackson is dead, I’ve grown a deeper pity for the man. Not a distant, condescending pity, but a real God-given sympathy for the pain he never escaped.
From News Of The World
“My father was real strict. If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch (cane).
“Dad would make me so mad and hurt that I’d try to get back at him and get beaten all the more.
“I’d take my shoe and throw it at him, or I’d just fight back, swinging my fists. That’s why I got it more than all my brothers combined.
“I would fight back and my father would tear me up. I do remember running under tables to get away from him, and making him angrier.
“We had a turbulent relationship.”
A turbulent relationship. Wow. That’s a very kind and forgiving portrayal of the man who gave him fame and fortune but forever denied him real love.
My guess is that Michael Jackson never had a normal, loving relationship with anybody in his life. His mother loved him and treated him well, but I expect even his mother’s love was damaged by his father.
We generally attend church on Saturday evenings. It fits our schedule better and the services and classes are smaller than those for Sunday morning. As is our custom, our pastor mentioned that, as Christians given a new heart by God, giving is in our DNA. He wasn’t talking about tithing. He was talking about giving to others in our everyday lives.
Michael was taken from, not given to. He had an immense God-given talent but it was stolen from him for pure greed. I’m not saying that Michael should have been a Christian musician - Jesus was a carpenter by profession and I doubt that he put a big Star of David by his name to get extra points in whatever passed for the Yellow Pages of his day.
Michael was cursed through his father. I’m sure that he loved his own children but I do not believe that he was capable of giving them the full love they deserved. In 20 years, will his children be playing out their own troubles for the cameras?
It’s real easy right now to blame Joe Jackson for Michael’s self-destruction. But what was done to Joe as a child? Was he abused as well? I am not taking Joe off the hook by saying something like that - we each are responsible for how we react to the blows dealt to us by the enemy.
It’s no wonder why Jesus had this to say about harming children:
…but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! Matthew 18:6-7 (ESV)
How many generations of the Jackson family have suffered under this curse? Did it begin in slavery? Did it begin much earlier in Africa?
May God have mercy on Michael Jackson’s soul and may his children break the curse that is at least as old as their grandfather.
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