Easter

Easter Devotional
Holding Out for a Hero
Pastor Greg Wooten,  Hope Chapel Church of the Nazarene

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[March 20, 2018]  Superman is dead. Or at least he was about this time 2 years ago. Sorry. Should I have included a spoiler alert? In the 2016 film Batman vs. Superman we find these fictional pop-culture icons blindly attacking each other until they are threatened by a real bad guy and choose to combine their remarkable powers and cool gadgetry to stop his rampaging monstrous creation. Just when it looks like all hope is gone Superman sacrifices himself to slay the monster. The day is saved, but the Man of Steel is lost and humanity is left with the question, “Can the world go on without its savior?”

Fascinating, isn’t it? So many of mankind’s best stories involve tales of supreme sacrifice. And when they happen to be true stories they evoke a powerful response in us. A soldier on the battlefield dies while saving his brothers. A teacher throws his body between his students and a hail of bullets fired by a crazed gunman. A firefighter rushes into an inferno to save a single life even when she knows she’ll never make it out alive. We love heroes.

And well we should since we are confronted, even assaulted, every day with real stories of tragedy, disaster, and humanly-perpetrated evil. Look around – death is everywhere. In the news. In the movies we watch. In the games we play. And, sadly, it even invades our ‘safe’ places. Death is greedy. It never seems to get its fill. Death never takes a holiday. Accidents, illnesses, overdoses, mass-murders and natural catastrophes consume lives without so much as a pause. Death is unbiased. It doesn’t care if you are rich or poor or what shade of pigment your skin reflects. Death refuses to respect borders. No wall ever built can stop it. It doesn’t take much imagination to personify death. It is a monster. It’s real. And it’s coming for us.

Any wonder, then, that we should invent hero stories? Who will defend us? Who will shield us? Who will save us from the monster? Enter the hero to take up the sword and slay the dragon. We need heroes. But when it comes to facing the monster of death itself, every hero eventually falls. Nobody wins a chess match with death. At least no ordinary human can. So we create heroes that are “super” (more than) human. Even ancient stories are told of gods and god-human hybrids that die and then return to life. DC Comics wasn’t the first one to kill off Superman only to bring him back to life a while later.

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Oops. I did it again, didn’t I? Sorry if I spoiled it, but yes, in the 2017’s Justice League the whole world is again in danger and a team of heroes come to the conclusion that they can’t defeat the enemy without Superman. So they use a magic “box” (aka alien technology) to reanimate him. The day is saved when death loses its grip on earth’s favorite adopted son.

I’m not trying to sound like a crotchety old movie critic. I enjoy a good superhero flick as much as the next guy. But these stories are just shadows of a greater story. It goes something like this: Death has terrorized humanity from Adam to now. God sent His Son to live a human life. We, all of us who don’t like God running our lives, ensured that He died an exceedingly painful human death. But just when it looked like death was even stronger than the Son of God, He came back! He arose and proved He is greater! And He has shown us the way that we, too, can share His victory over the grave. Jesus said,
 
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

John 6:40

As I said a few paragraphs ago, the best hero stories are the true ones. The rest may make for good drama, good television, or (with enough CGI and special effects) adapt well for film, but there is only one Hero who truly defeated death. Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

 

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