Jesus Isn’t a Superhero, Part the 2nd
See Jesus Is Not a Superhero for details about the sermon referenced
The sermon this week did point out that Jesus is the perfect superhero, because he saves us. And I mean yeah, sure, if you want to change everything that a superhero is commonly known to do. We have so many other names for Jesus, like doctor, teacher, healer, savior, messiah. There’s no need to be cool and try to make Jesus fit into modern culture. He already does.
I think most upsetting about calling Jesus a superhero is that if someone who had never heard about Jesus walked in and heard this sermon, they might walk away with a false image of God. (God = Superhero)
Jesus is commonly said to be a great man, a prophet, by those who do not believe he is our savior. The phrasing and content in this sermon literally approaches Jesus from this angle — an angle that says he’s just a man. I can see this being used as an argument to show people that Jesus isn’t just a man, he’s not just a great person or a good guy.
Jesus is the literal embodiment of God in human form, and while the sermons didn’t address that specifically, it was assumed that the audience would know this, which makes the reason you would use this argument completely fall short. If you don’t believe that Jesus is God, talking about him like he’s some superhero is going to come across badly.
And sure, most people would not have been bothered at all by this sermon (like the rest of my family) but they still deserve hearing true things. For me it’s really easy to get who God is messed up, and who Jesus is messed up, and that’s the reason this sermon triggered me.
I will say that the actual point of the sermon was that because Jesus is the perfect superhero, we can trust him and step out in faith. Am I crazy to think this is a bad message?
