The Hero We Need

Hollywood has made a killing off our ideal hero-image. For years, this hero was hyper-masculine, cartoonishly muscular, uniquely-abled, good-looking, had an extreme sense of morality, and wore underwear on the outside of his pants (not really sure what that was about). The consummate hero-image was Superman when I was growing up.

More recently, heroes have started to seem a lot different. Heroes are much more diverse. They have a "moral-compass," but are flawed. The strongest ones may be men or women. They embody something we want more of in ourselves, but with humanity that previous generation's heroes seemed to stand above. The consummate hero today is far more complex, and far more difficult to pin down. Captain America + Black Panther + Wonder Woman + Iron Man + Hulk + Captain Marvel + ... Even Superman is no longer portrayed as someone of near-perfection.

Regardless of the generation, humanity creates its own heroes based on what seems to be best at the time. What if the hero we need doesn't look anything like the hero we wanted? Actually, that's kind of why I like the hero-depictions today a little more. They can do the very best thing possible to save people from certain doom, and people may still reject them. Case-in-point, the Avengers save the world time after time, but a popular mass turns on them because they didn't save enough people, or their actions to "save" caused destruction, and what makes them any better than the villains anyhow?

Reminds me of the consummate hero.

John 5 depicts Jesus saving one person from suffering. He is the hero that the man at the Pool of Bethesda needed, but not the one he initially wanted. The man would have been happy with a Jesus that tossed him into the pool first before someone else got the healing the rippling waters were supposed to bring. Jesus showed Himself more powerful than any myth, or any false god or demon that day, healing the man with a simple command: "Take up your bed and walk home." He wasn't the hero that was wanted (at least initially), but He was the hero that was needed.

He also wasn't the hero that was wanted by the popular "hero-watchers" of His day. He healed on the Sabbath, commanding the man to do something on Sabbath that He wasn't really supposed to do. Then Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, doing what the Father told Him to do. He told them that to believe that He was the Son of God was to have eternal life. He told them He was there to save them. He told them that His works confirmed His identity. He told them the Scriptures were always talking about Him.

They wanted to kill Him. He was the hero they needed, but not the hero they wanted.

Here's the formula for the consummate Biblical hero: God's Word + Jesus's Action = Jesus's true identity as Messiah. And with the "formula" comes a challenge for each of us. We must prove Christ for ourselves based on who He claims to be, not on who we want Him to be.

He is not the hero who will just give us what we want when we want it. He is not the hero that is here to please those with a cookie-cutter image of who they think he needs to be. He is not properly defined on our terms: "Nice Jesus," "Warring Jesus," "European/Asian/African/American Jesus," etc. He can only be properly defined on His own terms--what the Word teaches Him to be.

God help us if Jesus is just who we want Him to be. Superman can't save us from what we need saving from. The totality of the Avengers/Defenders/Justice League/X-men can't save us from what we need saving from. They form the "saviors" we think fit our time and needs, but will never save us from the absolute worst villian. Only Jesus can do that.

But when He is right in front of you, don't miss out because He doesn't look like what you thought He'd look like, or do what you thought He'd do. Don't play the Pharisee game we are so tempted to play with today's heroes.

Prove Christ for Who He claims to be, based on the Word He claims as proof.

"Word plus action prove the worth of any claim. Look for Messiah of your own making, miss the Messiah you need. Accept the Messiah of the Word's making, receive the life you need." (A Proverb, by me, based on today's reading).