It seems that almost every blockbuster out of Hollywood these days comes from a comic book. They are even considering an Aquaman movie. Once, the orange and green suited hero brings his telepathic skills to the big screen you know that Hollywood has gone mad with superheroes.
The church, which refuses to be upstaged by Hollywood, has our own version of a superhero. Meet Superhero Jesus:
There is even a kids song for Superhero Jesus:
While, I get what they are going for, I think we ought to be a little slow to herald Jesus as the Greatest Superhero of all time. Here are three reasons.
1. He doesn’t fit the definition
Nobody can define a superhero better than Dwight Schrute. According to Dwight a “hero kills people, people that wish him harm. A hero is part human and part supernatural. A hero is born out of a childhood trauma, or out of a disaster, and must be avenged.”
Jesus isn’t part human and part God. He isn’t sort of one of us, like many superheroes. He is fully human. Nor is he part supernatural, he is fully God. Anytime we make Jesus a superhero we inevitably strip him of either his humanity or his full divinity.
2. He conquers through weakness
Superheroes are always conquering. And they conquer because they are bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter than their opponents. Certainly no one is bigger, stronger, faster, or smarter than Jesus. Therefore, if we are in Christ then we can be assured that he will help us to be more awesome as well.
The only problem is that Jesus conquered through weakness and not strength. “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
3. Jesus rejected superhero status
When Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness, it is almost as if Satan offered Jesus superhero status. Staring at all of the nations, the adversary offers to surrender all of them to Jesus. If only he’ll choose the path of a cross-less gospel.
In his book, Tempted and Tried, Russell Moore does a tremendous job of showing what is at stake in this temptation:
What was at stake in the third temptation was the gospel. Think about the implications of this offer. If Jesus had accepted it, Satan would have surrendered his reign of terror. Jesus could have directed the kingdoms of the world however he wanted. No more babies would be miscarried. No more women would die in childbirth. Ended immediately would be all human slavery, all genocide, all disease, all poverty, all torture, and all ecological catastrophes. The rows and rows of crosses across the highway of the Roman Empire would suddenly be gone. There would never be a Nero or a Napoleon or a Hitler or a Stalin, or at least you would never hear the infamy of those names. There would be no world of divorce courts and abortion clinics and electric chairs and pornographic images. Whatever is troubling you right now would be gone, centuries before you were ever conceived. This sounds like paradise.
Satan was willing to give all of this up because he doesn’t fear Christianity. He certainly doesn’t fear “Christian values.” Satan fears Christ. Remember that Satan holds power only through accusation and condemnation. As long as there is no atoning sacrifice for sin, Satan is quite willing to allow conformity to the external law, even to the law of Christ ruling visibly over the nations from Jerusalem. The accuser simply wants his opportunity to indict his human would-be supplanting powers before the judgment seat, with no shed blood to redeem them back.
Jesus could have came as a superhero and conquered through that means. Yet, what he chose was a bloody cross. Perhaps, when we think of Jesus as a superhero—and us along with him—what we are really saying is that we want a bloodless and cross-less gospel.
But such a gospel doesn’t save. It isn’t a superhero that will save humanity. Yes, humanity will be saved by the triumphant Lion of the tribe of Judah. But he’ll do it as a “Lamb standing, as though it had been slain…”
You and I don’t need a Superhero. We need Jesus.
