Good-Bye, Eko

If you don't watch Lost on Wednesday nights, you should. If you do, but you missed it this week, stop reading now. If you caught it, you might understand where I'm coming from.

My favorite character since last season has been Mr. Eko. He has been a picture of how the gospel can transform someone. Eko was a drug dealer in Nigeria who forced his brother Yemi, a Catholic priest, to make him and his cohorts priests so they could smuggle drugs out of the country on missionary planes. His plan didn't work, and Yemi was shot trying to protect Eko from the Nigerian military. They loaded Yemi onto the plane, and Eko was left behind. When Eko came to the island, he found that Yemi's plane had crashed there as well, and Yemi was dead. Eko took up his brother's priestly mantle. Eko seemed to be the only one besides Locke (and maybe Walt? but he's gone now) to understand the supernatural nature of the island. Eko looked the island's monster in the face and was not afraid, because he had found his brother's faith in God.

And they crushed him. Eko began to face his past and rejected the repentance he had held before, and the monster killed him. If you have read Harry Potter six, you will understand a bit what this felt like to me. Not only did Eko die, but all the humility and faith that made him noble was taken from him. I was shocked, and angry, and sad all at once.

God saves people like Eko, people who have indulged their sin only to find that there is nothing good there. But God does not have to save them. Recognizing your own depravity does not save you, and without God's work we may look at our depravity and then turn away and either despair or try to forget. It is a sobering reminder that God is not obligated to save anyone, even the repentant; God could, if he wished, send all of us to hell, and there would be nothing wrong in that act. The fact that he saves anyone is incredible, but it is true. The fact that he does not save everyone is also true, and is competely just. But it is still sad.

Good-Bye, Mr. Eko, I'm glad you could remind me of these things.