THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS AS A SUPER-HERO

(Approximate reading time; 6 minutes)

Hello, my friend. Thanks for reading this far already. 

Interestingly, one of the major lessons that I am learning in this season of my life is that shockingly, I am NOT a superhero!

 

In a literal sense, I am definitely not a superhero, but based on how I sometimes tend to act, I subconsciously think I am one. I attempt to sort out all the issues of other people and end up ignoring those of my own; I extremely dislike confessing that I need the assistance of others and would rather suffer in silence; more often than not, I am stuck in attempting to please everyone around me (which is impossible, as I've come to learn)…

Nevertheless, quite recently, I have come to shift my thinking from my own inability to be a superhero, to viewing humanity’s need for superheroes in general.

This past week, I was part of a team of missionaries and doctors who offered free medical services as well as evangelizing to the locals of Kenya’s second largest county; Marsabit. The event was planned for by charity organization; HOPE Citadel Foundation in partnership with an organization I am a part of; Christian Medical Fellowship.

(P.S. I took none of these photos. All credits are due to these awesome, talented people: Sam, Gina, Humphrey, Dominion, Aaron, Wens, and anyone else I may have forgotten.)

Along the journey to Maikona; one of the (very) rural towns, our trip was curtailed when we got to an extremely muddy part of the road and found that a bus had been stuck there since the night before and was therefore blocking the road.

Seeing that they were in the middle of the desert, the bus was too far away for the passengers to walk in either direction; either towards their starting point or their destination. They had been (literally) stuck there for close to 48 hours (remember this the next time you get stuck in traffic for 15 minutes!hehe)

To make matters worse, the heavy-duty caterpillar truck that was meant to wheel the bus out of the mud also got stuck in the mud. The irony was lost on no one!

As we struggled to direct the truck-driver out of the mud and place rocks under his truck’s tyres to create traction, my mind wandered and I began to think of how awesome it would be if a superhero swooped from the skies and lifted the truck out of the mud without batting an eyelid.

(Don’t lose focus! There’s a point behind all this!)

After watching enough Marvel action films, I could picture a superhero descend from the clouds with the grandeur of a celestial being. I could imagine the shock and awe of everyone around me at the radiance and beauty of this extra-terrestrial. I could hear their angelic voice utter their name and declare that our predicament was no match for their great power.

With the same effort required to lift a finger, this hero would haul the bus out of the mud, hoist the tractor onto dry ground, and maybe…just maybe…fly us to Maikona which was still quite a distance away.

Fortunately, we eventually found our way out of the mud (four hours later) and got on with our journey. For the rest of the trip to Maikona, I had the privilege of sitting on the roof of the bus and introspectively gazing at the stars. It was during this time that I wondered if perhaps the superhero mind-set is the same one employed when it comes to Jesus Christ.

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The first superhero to ever appear in comic books came about in the 1930’s and their film equivalents followed shortly thereafter in the 1940’s. Even before then, diverse cultures; from the Egyptians to the Greeks, had all along had gods and deities who had been posed to be the heroes who would set the people free from their oppressors and their troubles.

Examples include Horus; the ancient Egyptian deity, Achilles; the Greek hero, and many others across ancient cultures.

 

According to the Christian worldview, on the other hand, Jesus is set as the superhero who comes to rescue man from the clutches of sin that had been tormenting man from the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

“Perhaps,” I thought, “in the same way that I imagined a hero would swoop down and rescue us from our muddy situation, maybe it is this very mind-set that resulted in the creation of the Christian story of redemption. If this is true, then there is technically not much of a difference between the Christian’s ‘greatest story ever told’ and the other ancient fables that existed in past cultures.”

I must confess that this troubled me for most of our time during the mission.

Nevertheless, I have always been a firm believer that for whatever questions we have about God and faith, He is always willing to reveal the answers to us when we seek and trust Him.

I'm reminded of the disciple, Thomas, who refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the grave without seeing him and so Jesus revealed himself to him and even allowed him to touch the holes in his hands and side; and thereafter, Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”

Follow keenly as I seek to pull us out of these muddy waters.

After much thinking, prayer, and consultation, this is how I resolve this dilemma.

The reason we as humanity have always sought out for heroes throughout our history is because we have a gap in our capabilities that can only be filled by one. Though it may seem that there isn’t a difference between the Christian story of salvation and that of ancient folklore, focusing on the origin of the stories is missing the mark. Look into the specific characters represented and investigate whether they live up to their supposed superstar status.

For starters, Jesus cannot be compared to most ancient ‘deities’ in terms of historical existence, because as compared to Greek hero, Achilles, for example, Jesus truly existed in history whereas Achilles originated from a poem; Iliad by Greek poet Homer. 

(As is for any topic in the world, there exist people who discredit the very existence of Jesus and of course, that introduces a bit of a challenge for them considering we are in the year 2018 A.D./ Anno Domini/ the year of our Lord.)

My point is this; humanity’s need for a hero is inherent in us because we all have an inherent gap in our abilities. Jesus fills this gap not because we psychologically NEED someone to fill that gap, but because we have that gap whether we accept it or not.

Moreover, the steady build-up to the life of Jesus is phenomenal. 400 years before he was born to a young Jewish couple in Bethlehem, very specific prophecies were made regarding a ‘Messiah’ who would save humanity.

Prophecies regarding his birthplace, his lineage (born in the family line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David), that he would be preceded by a Messenger (John the Baptist), would begin his ministry in Galilee, would be sold for thirty pieces of silver, would be crucified with thieves, together with tens of other prophecies.

Of the 61 prophecies made regarding the Messiah, Jesus fulfilled each and every one of them! Probability-wise, the probability of one person fulfilling even 8 of them was found to be 1 in 10^17. More of this here.

In conclusion, Jesus being like a superhero ought not to be an obstacle to our faith in the authenticity of the Christian story; but instead, we should rejoice that in Jesus, we find a real-life superhero who conforms to history, prophecy, theology, and reality.

Soli Deo Gloria!