The Original Superhero Series

In America we love our heros, the people that we look up to. Many people dream of being a super hero when we are children, I know I did, and I had the bruises to prove it. But being a hero is hard. Batman and Robin are camping in the desert, set up their tent and are asleep. Some hours later, Batman wakes his faithful friend. "Robin, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Robin replies, "I see millions of stars." "What does that tell you?" asks Batman. Robin ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Batman?" Batman is silent for a moment, then speaks: " Robin, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent."

As we grow up we realize that hero’s come in many shapes and sizes and I have yet to meet one who got they way because there were bitten by a radio active spider of survived a fall into toxic waste, although changing diapers does come pretty close. In fact when it comes to people who are hero’s because of special powers I only know of one, Jesus. We talk about what He did in the past, think about it, aqua man can swim under water, Jesus walked on it. Superman can fly and leap over tall buildings in a single bound but Jesus didn’t just fly He went all the way up into heaven. We know all of these things but do we see Jesus as the hero of the story? That is one of the gifts of the Chronicles of Narnia, by showing Jesus as the Hero Aslan we are reminded that our God is a hero who shows up to save the day.

Do we remember it, or do we take it for granted. How we really should answer this question, the truthful answer is revealed in one simple thing, what we tell our story to we make God the hero of it or are we the hero? That is the choice that Paul and Barnabas were faced with in Acts chapter 14. I’m not going to read the whole chapter to you but here’s the key point. Acts 14:8-18, “In Lystra tere sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, ‘Stand up on your feet!’ At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lyconian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ‘Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are brining you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.’ Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.”

Think for a moment about someone that you consider to be a hero and what sets them apart. It can be a great athlete, world leader, policeman or some other public servant. And then think for a moment about someone that you thought was a hero and then realized that they weren’t. They may be someone from the first list, think for a moment about what it is that made them fall from grace.

Often it’s not a failure in what they are supposed to do. We understand that athlete are great for awhile but eventually with age the fleet of foot get caught, they can’t turn on a fastball any more, or the one who used to soar to the basket now seems to be bound by gravity. We don’t discard them for those things we thank them for the memories. Usually when our hero’s fall from grace it is because something failed in the personal realm. We can talk about temptations and circumstances but what it really comes down to is motivation what did they set out to accomplish in the first place?