When I was a lot younger, I read the comics and watched TV shows like Superman and Batman (not always with the permission of my parents) and marveled at the strength of these more-than-humans and their ability to stay calm in almost any tough situation. Now I see Marvel(tm) comics or see the ads for movies with Hulk, Thor, Captain America and the others and I realize these fantasies
bring out our greatest fears and hopes: evil is out there, and we're hoping someone enormously powerful will save us. Good news! Evil is out there, but someone infinitely powerful has already defeated it and saved us.
No surprise to my readers, but the Ultimate Superhero is, of course, Jesus Christ. He faced down humanity's most fearsome enemy, Satan (Matt. 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13) besides that, he defeated sin, death and all of the demonic forces. Nobody of his time really understood him but they were compelled to follow him because of his love and his ability to rescue people from their ills.
In Matthew 8, Jesus heals a man by touching him (v. 1-4), heals a Roman officer's servant without even going to see him, merely declaring it to be true (v. 5-13) heals "many people" (v. 14-17) and then in a display of amazing power over Creation itself, calms a storm -- settles the wind and the waves on the Sea of Galilee (v. 23-27). Here's a guy who can do it all! A lot of the super-heroes shown in the comics can do one kind of thing, like break rocks or control the weather, or slice up anything in their way. Some have two or three abilities. All have their near-fatal weaknesses. But nobody can do it all -- except Jesus!
Here's the fun part. I was reading Matthew 8 in the English Standard Version, and in verse 27, it says the disciples "marveled." Some 1900 years before the Marvel comics came out, Jesus was the true "marvel." Imagine that! We're not surprised, of course, just pleased. In an ironic (or is that Iron-Man?) sort of way. So when we see these super-heroes on the screen, let's take a moment to celebrate the greatest of them all!
(p.s. If you want a deeper look at this theme, see http://www.generationsministries.org/camp-teaching-materials.html.)
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