TV's Lost and Mr. Eko's Journey of Faith

The journey of the characters on the ABC Television series "Lost" is at least as much a spiritual journey, at it is a physical one. And seemingly second to no one, including Locke, Mr. Eko appeared to be the show's religious center. His initial defiance of the Smoke Monster during the quest for the crashed Nigerian plane that held his brother's body along with the narcotics he himself had been smuggling made his death at the hands of the Smoke Monster all the more baffling. Yet all this was an integral part of Mr. Eko's journey of the spirit and his ultimate death.

After the Others attack the camp of the tail section survivors who are seeking to take those on their list they consider 'good', Mr. Eko refuses to go with them and fight backs, killing them. Afterwards he remains silent for 40 days carving himself a staff. Along the way Mr. Eko helps lead the tail section survivors to the camp and his staff provides a guide for Locke, Kate and Sayid in their attempt to locate the home base of the Others.

40 days is an ongoing biblical reference, but in this instance appears to most clearly reference Moses. Moses was also distinguished by the staff he carried and he led the Jewish people through the desert for 40 years, but he himself did not live to see it, dying instead on the other side for disobeying God.

Mr. Eko too dies before he has a chance to see the survivors reach the purpose of their journey on the Island. It is John Locke who instead employs the staff to point the way north. Yet by the end of the previous season, it was John Locke who had apparently lost faith in his purpose and Mr. Eko who forcibly reminded him and nearly died to maintain the hatch and the button. Yet after this it was ultimately Eko who died and Locke who lived to continue his spiritual quest.

The answer to this lies in the problem of faith. Mr. Eko and Locke both possessed great reserves of faith. Locke questioned his. Mr. Eko never did. Mr. Eko had lived a violent life in the past and Locke's own life had been troubled, but where Locke had most often been the victim of the betrayals of others, Mr. Eko had been the victimizer. Mr. Eko had recreated his life, attempting to embrace religion and a way of peace. He had left it behind but in the final confrontation of his journey, as embodied in the video clip you can play on the right, it was clear that he had not repented of his old life.

A fundamental function of the presence of the Oceanic Flight 815 survivors on the Island is not merely to follow a well trodden path, but to evaluate the choices they made in their lives and break those patterns. While Mr. Eko had faith and while he had broken with his old life and remade himself anew, he had not broken with the same attitude that had determined the choices he had made to reach this point. Mr. Eko's defiance of the Smoke Monster \ The Angel telling him he must repent is rooted in his belief that he never truly had the ability to choose and he therefore has nothing to repent for.

When God challenges Adam and Eve in the Garden, both blame others for their actions, claiming that it is not they who are responsible for what they did. If Lost's Island is once again a second chance for mankind to return to the Garden of Eden and this time learn to use free will wisely, Eko's attitude completely frustrates that design. Rather than repenting of his choices, Mr. Eko insists he had no choice and thereby proved himself unable to reach the plateau needed for the spiritual path of the Island, the Garden of Eden.

The reality is that throughout his life Mr. Eko had made an increasing number of bad and violent choices that brutalized and victimized others. He only turned his back on these choices after they cost his brother his life. While in death Mr. Eko gains the chance to join his brother, he is unable to continue living a life that demands more of him than simply to have faith and pursue a destination without making an honest accounting of the choices he has made in his life.

Locke, by contrast, though not explicitly religious, nevertheless pursues a course as a reborn man who seeks answers. Locke's faith may be tested but that is because it may be blind but it is not deaf. Mr. Eko's faith might be stronger but it lacked the question edge of Locke's pursuit. John Locke has questioned his choices and that along with his faith is why he remains worthy to continue traveling along the journey along the Island that he has been set on. Mr Eko's stronger faith has prepared the way for him. Mr. Eko's staff served as Locke's guide, Mr. Eko maintained faith in the purpose of the button after Locke had come to disbelieve and Mr. Eko's church became the structure of Locke's sweat lodge that itself gave him the answer for rescuing Mr. Eko. Even in death Mr. Eko's powerful faith serves to guide Locke. But Mr. Eko himself cannot accompany Locke, at least not in life, to the promised land.