The latest installment of Superman was viewed by yours
truly. A good hero movie can occupy my DVD player any night of the week and
twice on Sunday. Many have speculated as to why the hero flicks keep coming, or
more succinctly why throngs of people keep paying to see them. What is it about
these often conflicted champions that arrest our attention, especially
considering the usual two-dimensionality of character and plot, as very few
contemporary portrayals delve very deep into original moral or existential
dilemmas?
But maybe it’s not the complexity of these characters that continue to arouse the anticipation of hopeful patrons. Perhaps it’s much simpler, like the struggle for truth, justice, and the righteous way. It seems everyone is born with some foggy notion of right and wrong, as the human heart suspects that personal sacrifice for the greater good is indeed the greatest good.
One day a neighbor knocked on the door to tell me William had wrecked his bike and needed me. I ran down the block to see a knee skinned up good and proper. So I picked him up and carried him a block and a half home. I never felt more heroic. After doctoring him up, I asked him what he said to the neighbor when he had his wreck, and he replied, “I told them to go get Mom.” This reminded me that I may be made in God's image, therefore capable of heroic acts, yet in no real sense am I a hero.
Blaise Pascal said,
“Let man now judge his own worth, let him love himself, for there is within
him a nature capable of good; but that is no reason for him to love the vileness
within himself. . . Let him both love and hate himself; he has within him the
capacity for knowing truth and being happy, but he possesses no truth which is
either abiding or satisfactory.”
Our heroic acts are less heroic when considering the darkness of our motives. I did consider it my honor to carry my mildly wounded son home, but I also couldn’t help feel a bit exalted, even justified. Like most, I have previous volumes of very un-heroic engagements as well as the regrets that come with them. Yet, the last thing I need is noble behavior that makes me feel good about myself, because any heroics I perform are only an extension of a true Hero. The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Like fiction’s flawed heroes, the average person possesses the potential for noble heroics, but most recognize their own need for rescue. The insecure dream of being saved from the haunting feelings of inadequacy. The lonely hope to be liberated from the chains of solitude. The crushed spirit prays for someone to make them whole. And the sinner looks for deliverance from the coming Judgment.
The Christian Gospel proclaims the source of these needed provisions. Christ took our inadequacy upon himself, that we may know God’s acceptance; He was left alone by his Father, that we may have fellowship with God forever; He was crushed in spirit, that we may be made whole; and as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
But maybe it’s not the complexity of these characters that continue to arouse the anticipation of hopeful patrons. Perhaps it’s much simpler, like the struggle for truth, justice, and the righteous way. It seems everyone is born with some foggy notion of right and wrong, as the human heart suspects that personal sacrifice for the greater good is indeed the greatest good.
One day a neighbor knocked on the door to tell me William had wrecked his bike and needed me. I ran down the block to see a knee skinned up good and proper. So I picked him up and carried him a block and a half home. I never felt more heroic. After doctoring him up, I asked him what he said to the neighbor when he had his wreck, and he replied, “I told them to go get Mom.” This reminded me that I may be made in God's image, therefore capable of heroic acts, yet in no real sense am I a hero.
Blaise Pascal said,
“Let man now judge his own worth, let him love himself, for there is within
him a nature capable of good; but that is no reason for him to love the vileness
within himself. . . Let him both love and hate himself; he has within him the
capacity for knowing truth and being happy, but he possesses no truth which is
either abiding or satisfactory.”
Our heroic acts are less heroic when considering the darkness of our motives. I did consider it my honor to carry my mildly wounded son home, but I also couldn’t help feel a bit exalted, even justified. Like most, I have previous volumes of very un-heroic engagements as well as the regrets that come with them. Yet, the last thing I need is noble behavior that makes me feel good about myself, because any heroics I perform are only an extension of a true Hero. The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Like fiction’s flawed heroes, the average person possesses the potential for noble heroics, but most recognize their own need for rescue. The insecure dream of being saved from the haunting feelings of inadequacy. The lonely hope to be liberated from the chains of solitude. The crushed spirit prays for someone to make them whole. And the sinner looks for deliverance from the coming Judgment.
The Christian Gospel proclaims the source of these needed provisions. Christ took our inadequacy upon himself, that we may know God’s acceptance; He was left alone by his Father, that we may have fellowship with God forever; He was crushed in spirit, that we may be made whole; and as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
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