May The Force Be With You Series

HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

“May the Force Be With You”

Wouldn’t it be great to have super powers?

Wouldn’t you like to wake up one morning to find you had, in the words of the old Superman TV show… “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men?”

To be faster than a speeding bullet…

More powerful than a locomotive…

To leap tall buildings in a single bound?

I wonder…

I wonder, if you were given the chance to acquire one super power…what would it be?

A recent poll asked this question, and gave participants the following options:

Invulnerability.

Reading minds.

Spider-sense.

The ability to fly.

X-Ray vision.

Invisibility.

Super strength.

Genie-like magic.

Great intelligence.

Incredible luck.

Look over that list and think about it for a sec.

Which of those, if you could choose only one, would be your super power of choice?

Well, if you’re like the majority of those who responded, 25% in fact of the over 9000 people polled your choice was…

The ability to fly.

Why do you suppose that is?

What is it about flying that makes it more appealing than…invisibility, for example?

I think it would be great to become invisible.

To just disappear at will for short periods of time, wouldn’t that be great?

You know, some people claim it does happen to them.

There is a group of people who claim to suffer from a syndrome they’ve labeled, HSII

Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility.

I’m not making this up.

They claim that for no explained reason they have disappeared for a brief period of time.

It happens at parties, when suddenly the other guests completely ignore them.

One woman writes how her husband ran all over the house searching for her, when she was sitting on the sofa the whole time.

One woman claims she’s tempted at times to sneak into banks and steal money, since at times she becomes completely invisible. !?!?

These people claim to suffer from invisibility.

I wonder if any of them have every tried to see a doctor about this.

“Doctor, there’s a woman out here who claims she’s invisible.”

“Tell her I can’t see her right now.”

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Now I’m assuming that none of us here has ever been invisible.

Even though it was the third most popular super power in that poll.

But maybe some of us here have tried to fly at some time.

C’mon guys…fess up.

You tie that towel around your neck, and when nobody’s looking...up, up, and away!

That’s how my dad broke his arm when he was a little boy.

And just two weeks ago, a 4 year old girl in North Carolina, having watched “Harry Potter” on video, crawled up onto her kitchen counter, straddled a broomstick, and tried to take off, and it would be amusing if she didn’t then find herself in critical condition at her local hospital.

As much as we’d like to have super powers sometimes, the fact of the matter is, we’re only human.

But last week, as we started this series, we entertained a fascinating idea…

The idea that, as people who are “only human,” we are the very kind of people God is after.

We met two Davids last week…David Dunn from “Unbreakable,” an everyday guy who discovers he has a not-so-everyday calling.

And another David, who we met in the Old Testament.

A shepherd boy, an everyday guy, who is called by God to be a king.

Two ordinary people who become heroes.

Kinda like Luke Skywalker.

You remember him? A farmboy. A nobody from a distant, forgotten planet who becomes the galaxy’s greatest hero.

But his journey isn’t an easy one.

We saw that early on this morning, as Luke faced a seemingly insurmountable task.

He looked out at a situation that seemed impossible, and then believed it was.

Luke was a lot like the soldiers of Israel who found themselves with a giant taunting them.

Picture the scene: they’ve been called to defend their land against a massive army gathered to invade them and destroy them.

So here they are, getting ready for a great battle, when all of a sudden, out comes this guy about 9 feet tall to face them.

Now before you strike that off as either literary license or even plain fiction, remember that the tallest man in modern recorded history, Robert Wadlow, was 8 feet 11 inches tall.

Anyway, here comes this giant of a man, and he offers them the chance to end the battle quickly by sending out their champion to fight him.

They take one look at this behemoth of a man and they take off.

Then along comes David, young David.

And this kid puts the soldiers in their place.

“What are you doing?” he asks. “This monster insults you and God, and you just stand there? Are you just going to let him do this?”