Evil Always Makes You Happy . . . At First

 In Return of the Jedi, when the emperor arrives on the second Death Star, the emperor's theme is played while he walks with Darth Vader through an army of Stormtroopers and officers. You see the end of his plan to dominate the galaxy, and the power he has accumulated since the beginning of his plan. It's ominous music. It sounds evil. The darkness of what this man has done, the lives he has ruined and the destruction he intends to do is obvious and the music gives you a really bad feeling in your gut. 

What some may be unaware of is that when Lukas made The Phantom Menace, he chose to show the beginning of Palpatine's reign which the rest of the galaxy thinks is a victory for them. They celebrate at the end of the movie when he begins his rise to power, and Lukas chose to do so with the same tune playing. But not many noticed.

Not many noticed because the song is sped up to sound joyful. It's played in celebration with added instruments, but at its core, it is the same song. 

This hidden foreshadowing reminded me of what most evil looks like. It's not usually recognized as evil. Excuses are made for it so that we reason why it isn't evil this time. This time, we reason to ourselves and others, it's actually a good. We take the song that evil sings and we add our excuses for it like Lukas added those instruments. We make it sound like a different song than what it really is, the song of our doom.

No matter how hard we try, however, no matter how we play it, it remains the same song. It is not meant to benefit us but to destroy us in the long run. 

We do this because we really, really want something. Yet, it is in those times when we really, really want something that we should step back and take a hard look through the lens of the revelation God has given us through the counsel of the church Christ has gifted us to microscopically evaluate whether what we really, really want is evil that should be cut from us like a gangrenous limb.

If we fail to do so then our victory song we sing because we acquired something we think will make us happy is nothing more than our funeral dirge.