Gods and Superheroes

The scriptures referred to are Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52 and Colossians 1:15-28.

In the latest Marvel film, Thor: Love and Thunder, the antagonist is a man who has lost his daughter as well as his faith in his uncaring god. He dispatches him with a magical sword that can kill even gods. Then as Gor the God-Butcher, he goes on a campaign of trying to kill all the gods. Which means Thor must stop him.

But when Thor goes to the celestial palace in which the gods of all the worlds and peoples have gathered to enjoy themselves and to hide from Gor, he finds that they don't want to face the God Butcher and don't care about the children he is holding as hostages to lure Thor into a confrontation. Zeus in particular is indifferent to their plight and has no desire to face possible death to save them.

And surprisingly this comic book movie reflects the way polytheistic gods were actually viewed, especially in the Greco-Roman world. Their religions reflected the patronage system around which their society was structured. Just as people served the rich and powerful in exchange for favors that might be bestowed on them, so too people tried to appease and bribe the gods to give them rain and crops and fertility and peace and prosperity. The gods did not do these things out of the goodness of their hearts.

Missing from this movie's gathering of gods, of course, is the Christian God. You can see why in our passage from Amos. Unlike the others, The God of the Bible is not indifferent but cares about those who suffer. The Lord is outraged at those who “trample on the needy, and bring ruin upon the poor of the land...” In Psalm 82, the Lord is depicted as judging the gods of the nations for their inaction and injustice. “Defend the cause of the poor and fatherless! Vindicate the oppressed and suffering! Rescue the poor and needy! Deliver them from the power of the wicked!” (Psalm 82:3-4) God in fact liberates an entire nation of slaves, teaching them not to worship those other gods, to love their neighbor and to act with justice and mercy. He would be a poor fit in this film.

There's also the problem that film is a visual medium and Yahweh would be almost impossible to depict. The same cannot be said for Jesus. But, let's face it, Jesus would not work well in a film about indifferent, unloving or multiple gods either, nor in any film that is about good triumphing over evil by shedding the blood of others.

In contrast to these petty limited gods, in our passage from Colossians we are told, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things were created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Some critics claim this high Christology, this exalted view of Jesus, cannot have been written within a few decades of Jesus' life. They say it must have been written later and by someone other than Paul. Yet we find these words and ideas in the undisputed letters of Paul. Jesus is called “the image of God” in 2 Corinthians 4:4. In Philippians 2:6 he is said to be “existing in the form of God” and yet does not consider his “equality with God something to be clung to.” In 1 Thessalonians, Paul's earliest surviving letter, in the very first verse he calls Jesus Christ “Lord,” a word Jews used instead of saying the divine name of God. He also says Jesus died and rose from the dead in that letter (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 4:14). Colossians doesn't so much give us unique ideas about Jesus as gather them all together and state the implications.

One of the implications is that when we are dealing with Jesus, we are dealing with God, not some lesser deity. All the fullness of God dwells in Jesus. As he himself said, “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) So we don't have to go through various lesser beings, like humans or demigods or some celestial bureaucracy, to speak to God. We can go straight to Jesus.

And because he is the image of the invisible God, if you want to know what God is like, you only have to look at Jesus. There are a lot of distorted images of God out there, like a hate-filled, always angry bully who wants to destroy the world and throw all the sinners into hell. This isn't even a true picture of God in the Old Testament. In Ezekiel he says he takes no delight in the death of the wicked but rather in them turning from their ways and turning to him and finding life. (Ezekiel 18:23, 32) For the clearest view of God, look at Jesus. Jesus proclaims, not a declaration of war on this wicked world, but the good news that he is here to save the world. (John 3:17) He teaches, not that God can't wait to punish sinners, but that God forgives us. (Luke 18:9-14) Jesus does not wield a sword; he heals the wounded. (Luke 22:49-51) Jesus does not shed the blood of his enemies but allows them to shed his blood, thereby saving even them. On the cross Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) And the centurion supervising Jesus' crucifixion afterward says, “Truly this man was God's Son!” (Mark 15:39) He saw in Christ the divine nature of God.

A persecutor of Christ's body, the church, also saw God in Jesus. Saul of Tarsus saw God's grace and love in Jesus reaching out to him. When known as Paul, he wrote to Timothy, “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners'—and I am the worst of them.” (1 Timothy 1:15) Having received forgiveness, Paul wrote to the Romans, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) And because we did nothing to deserve this, this grace or favor which God shows us is not earned by our efforts. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Unlike with those pagan gods, we cannot gain the Lord's favor through our sacrifices or anything we do; we can only accept it humbly and gratefully, by trusting in Jesus: in who he is and what he has done for us and is doing in us.

So I find it interesting that in this superhero movie the villain is right. These petty gods are not interested in justice or helping the helpless. They are no different than the target of Psalm 52. If they are in charge of the universe, then life is meaningless. These idols deserve to be destroyed.

But I did not anticipate that a film focusing on silly and fallible pagan gods would nevertheless come to the conclusion that there is one who is eternal and is greater than them. Or that self-sacrifice and love are what saves us in the end. Or that there is resurrection and an afterlife. There is even an implied forgiveness for the one who kills a god. These are prominent Christian themes that one would not expect to see in a movie whose main purpose is to entertain. But I think the writers and director realized that without them, there is no hope. Life would ultimately be just chaos, injustice and sadness. After all, the Norse mythology from which they plucked Thor ends with the death of Thor, Odin, Loki, Heimdall, and the other major gods, a singularly bleak conclusion for any pantheon. They cheated a bit in the movie Thor:Ragnarok, because who wants to see all the heroes die? Not that superheroes stay dead.

Which is something else filched from the gospel. Jesus of Nazareth actually died, not in battle but surrendering himself to those who perpetuated injustice in the name of law and order. He was officially executed in the most cruel way possible by Pontius Pilate, whom we know existed because of an inscription on stone which archaeologists have discovered. And yet the Jesus movement, unlike other Messianic movements, did not fall apart or disappear. Because his disciples went from cowardly hiding from the authorities to courageously proclaiming his resurrection. And they continued to proclaim it despite torture and their eventual executions. Why? Because when Jesus came back from death with the promise of eternal life, they didn't fear death any more. Life was no longer a matter of “live it up while you can because one day it's all over forever.” It's a matter of trusting Jesus and following the God who is love and life incarnate.

And the message of the gospel, the good news not merely of eternal life but of a God who loves people, was compelling. The old gods took care of the rich and powerful because they were able to provide sacrifices and sponsor festivals for the individual gods, an expensive proposition. But again this was transactional. You give to the god, he gives to you. But a God who graciously loves all people, even the poor and women and slaves and tax collectors and prostitutes? (Luke 6:20-21; Matthew 21:31) That's unheard of. Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) In a society organized by class, where a quarter of the people were slaves, and where women were considered “unpredictable and fickle creatures” inferior to men, this was revolutionary. Christians were saying that all human beings were created in God's image and that Christ died for all. Every person has an inherent and equal value in God's eyes.

And that was one of the things that attracted people to the God revealed in Jesus Christ: a God who cares. A God who loves his creatures and is even willing to become one of them and die for them. A God who doesn't promise a shadowy half-life in Hades as we see in the Odyssey, where the ghost of Achilles says he would rather be a living slave than king of the dead, but a God who promises new life in a new creation where death and pain and mourning are no more. A God who came back to life to verify what he said.

In the movie Zeus complains that the gods have been replaced by superheroes. And he's right: they too are powerful but fallible beings, always fighting, supposedly for good but mostly to restore the status quo. In Avengers:Infinity War in response to an overpopulated universe outstripping its resources, the villain Thanos uses the Infinity Gauntlet's power to alter reality to simply eliminate half the people—rather than, say, to increase the available resources. And when the heroes get the gauntlet they use it to simply bring everyone back, and make the bad guys disappear, but not to fix the real problem Thanos points out. Like the tales of the Greek and Norse gods, these are great and entertaining stories. But they don't really change the world for the better.

Jesus didn't fight monsters or aliens or robots or gods. Or anyone really. He didn't have a magical artifact. He didn't wear a cool costume showing off his muscles. He wouldn't make a good superhero.

But then the evil Jesus fought wasn't found in costumed, superpowered beings. It doesn't come from outer space or some other dimension. Nor does evil come from belief in God. Like Gor the God-Butcher, two large nations tried to eliminate evil by eliminating, among other things, religion. And the Soviet Union and Communist China killed tens of millions more in 1 century than the abuse of religion did in 20 centuries. Erasing God from the equation doesn't erase evil. Because real evil isn't outside us; it's in us. As Jesus said, “For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23) We are our own worst enemies. Comic book supervillains need not apply.

Nor did Jesus deal with evil by killing bad guys, as practically all our heroes do. He did it by teaching and healing and turning bad guys into good guys. He turned an impulsive fisherman, and two hotheaded brothers, and a tax collector, and a zealous persecutor, and a woman who wrestled with her many demons, and a motley crew of ordinary people into followers of the God who is love and then ambassadors of his good news.

And he is doing that even today. Through his words and his Spirit, he is still changing lives. He calls us to be loving and forgiving and generous and to help the helpless and to give voice to the voiceless and to be peacemakers. And despite those who worship riches and power and who feel the answer to our problems is to sacrifice those who would disturb the status quo, people who actually listen to Jesus and answer his call are changing the world for the better. Followers of Jesus feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, take care of the sick, visit the imprisoned, and welcome the foreigner. They have set up schools and hospitals all over the world. They respond to disasters. Christians have hid Jews from the Nazis, set up the Underground Railroad to help escaped slaves get to freedom, worked for Civil Rights, run homeless shelters and more.

And that's another thing: in a superhero universe, ordinary people have no power to help. They can only scream and run while the defenders of the city destroy half of it to save it from the monsters. Here again this movie surprised me by having a god share his power with those who are not divine, just as Jesus shares his power with us, through his Holy Spirit. Not that we are to be warriors like in the film but rather witnesses to Jesus as well as “his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.” (Ephesians 2:10) Jesus even said that those who trust in him would do greater works than he. (John 14:12) Nor do we have to worry that this is more than we can handle. Instead he “by the power that is working within us is able to do far beyond all that we can ask or conceive of.” (Ephesians 3:20) Working together as the body of Christ, through the power of the Spirit, we can do wonders.

And we don't need magical hammers or axes or lightning bolts. We don't need to become like Thor. But we can become like Jesus. Will we be perfect at it? No. Which is why real followers of Jesus do self-examination and confess their sins and ask for forgiveness and for help. And with the power of the Spirit we can do better and become more Christlike, day by day. Besides, as we've seen, if you wait for what is perfect to come along, in the meantime things will get worse. If you don't have a doctor on hand, you do first aid: stop the bleeding, splint the leg, give the Narcan. In her book on pastoral care, Barbara J. McClure wrote, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” And neither are we alone in doing this. We have our heavenly Father, we have Jesus, we have the Spirit: the one and only God who is love. And we can do all things through the one who strengthens us. (Philippians 4:13)