Musings about Superheroes

There are some cracking worship songs out there.  There are some awful ones. Some of the stuff from For King and Country really move me closer to God. Chris Tomlin is a powerful artist.

Then there are ones like 'Jesus is my best friend'. I know it's a kid's song but so many Christians hold on to that 'truth' rather too hard.

Yes, Jesus is my friend and he is the best one I have.  However, he's also so much more than this. You see, I don't think that we, as a church, really see the full potential in our relationship with Christ and we don't put it through our worship properly either.

One of the things we are often guilty of in our worship is docetism. This is a heresy. Simply put it means not accepting that Jesus was ever fully human. He was merely a God playing at being human. An easy way to see if anyone has any latent docetic tendencies is to ask the question 'Did Jesus use the toilet?' Watch people as they think about it and they'll give away that Jesus wasn't a fully human person.

He was though.  Philippians makes this clear when Paul says

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:5‭-‬8 NIV

Christ was fully human. That's why he knows exactly what we feel when we feel things. It really is a central part of what we believe about Jesus. He is not a superhero. Someone who is a meta human or a transformed human. Neither is he one of those superheroes like Batman who were normal humans. Jesus had no advantages and no special skills. He was as human as you or I.

Another reason why I don't like the 'Jesus as superhero' idea is that I don't like superheroes. That's not exactly right, what I don't like about them is the trope that they have to be flawed. Spiderman is bitten by a radioactive spider. The X Men are 'mutants'. Superman is an orphan.

I resigned myself to never being a superhero long ago. I've got both parents, no significant role model has died in front of me, I've not had a major accident etc. I'm a bog standard normal person. Much like Jesus (one of the very few ways I am like him).

Jesus wasn't flawed and wasn't special in any way. He was a normal, fully human person. He felt the way we do, he ate the way we do and he went to the loo the way we do.

It was precisely because of this that he was able to take our place on the cross when he died in our place.