Superman or Son of Man

Pray...

Please stand as you are able as we read God’s word:

Hebrews 4:14–16 NRSV

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Did anyone see the new Superman trailer they dropped? In case you missed it… Show video clip.

Superman is AWESOME. I grew up with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Hall of Justice. Heroes who fought for truth, justice, and the American way. I don’t remember even seeing a Marvel comic until my teens, but I remember at the time they didn’t look like heroes to me. Wolverine may fight the bad guys, but Wolverine was not a good guy. He was a bit of a butt hole, if we’re being honest.

But the DC comic characters were real heroes. They were all cool, but Superman was the best. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Bullets richoted off him. He could shoot lasers out of his eyes and see through walls. As a hormonal teenage boy I thought that might have been his best super power. And of course, he could fly!

Superman would be a good person to have on your side. But Superman wasn’t really one of us. He looked like us, but he couldn’t really experience embodied humanity they way we do.

Superman might be able to suffer a broken heart, but he would never experience a broken bone. He couldn’t feel pain the way we do.

He had a body, but he would likely never experience the shame that is often associated with our bodily experience.

While kryptomite could steal his strength, he could never experience the kind of infirmity that each of us have or will face in our body.

Superman would be a good friend to have, but he couldn’t ever really be one of us.

And while Superman might we able to save us from danger, he is powerless to save us from our self. He might be able to protect us from baddies, but he can do nothing about shame or guilt we carry. He can’t help heal our sickness. He can do nothing for us as we approach our time of death. We need something more than Superman for that.

We’ve been looking the last few weeks at the reality of our bodily existence. And while our embodiment is a good gift, because of sin there is also a burden associated with our physical self.

Week 1 we addressed the shame that many of us carry regarding our body and the struggle of self-loathing.

Week 2 we learned that our body is the real us - warts and all - and not just a suit we slip on for a short period.

Last week we looked at the issue of our sexuality and the struggle it can be to live gendered, and the especially painful condition of gender dysphoria.

This week we begin to turn the corner toward more promising and hopeful topics about our body. But there is one last bit of bad news we need to face about our body. It’s not a bid deal, really - hardly worth mentioning. It’s just that, being embodied, means that we are also subjected to futility and death. That’s it! That’s the last of the bad news!

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But in all seriousness, these are two issues we need to be honest about and face head on. First...

Our body has been subjected to futility.

Romans 8:20–21 “for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

When it says we, along with all creation, has been subjected to futility, it means that there is an aspect of our existence that will always be a struggle. There will be things in our life that will seem meaningless or pointless. Something has happened that means things don’t work like they were intended to.

This is why Solomon repeated in his happy little book, Ecclesiastes, that everything is “Vanity, vanity, a chasing after the wind.” There is a meaningless to life in the sense that God has put eternity in our hearts, yet we are unable to achieve it.

And this futility is intentional. That God has done it on purpose. Why? The answer given is that it was done “in hope”. God could not allow his creation to fall into sin without consequence. And so the futility and frustration we experience is a mercy intended to awaken us to our need for God - that we might return to him in order to be healed. Superman can’t save us from a life that can feel futile.

Our body has come under the dominion of death.

Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—”

Death is baked into our reality. We are confronted with it early in life. While we try and ignore it and keep thoughts of it at bay, it is this thing that is looming in our future. The main connection between suffering and death and sin is at a general, humanity-wide level. It is not just that one person’s suffering is a sign of his or her individual sin, but that anyone’s suffering and death is a sign of everyone’s sin.

The Bible portrays sin and it’s corresponding death consequence as an infection. It entered God’s good world, and it infects everything it touches. This is the ultimate weakness of our embodied condition. Eventually we must die, and Superman can’t help us with this.

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Futility and death - These are the natural states of our embodied life. You will experience some pointlessness in life - and then you die. Happy thoughts!

But… While this may be the natural state we are born into, it’s not the end of the story. God was unwilling to let this be the final word.

Superman could never help us bc he isn’t really one of us. And so God didn’t send Superman, he sent the Son of man. Speaking of Jesus, the author of Hebrews writes, Hebrews 10:5 “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me;”

The amazing thing this passage tells us is that God, who wasn’t like us, became us. Embodied, entering our bodily condition. He became subjected to futility and death as one of us. This is the central message of the Bible. That in Jesus, God was healing our condition caused by sin, taking it upon himself for us. Maybe this morning God is inviting you to put your faith in Jesus death and resurrection and receive his forgiveness and new life...

In order to heal our bodily condition, he had to assume it. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus has become like us in almost every way. There is no human agony unfamiliar to Jesus. He knows:

Physical pain - We don’t know if Jesus ever got sick as a child or suffered from a scraped knee or sprained ankle. There’s not reason to think he didn’t experience these things. But we know that on the cross his experience with physical suffering was not shallow. He experienced bodily pain that most of will never have to face.

Shame - Whenever we depict Jesus on the cross, we like to protect his modestly (show pic). But there was no such consideration given in reality. Jesus hung on a cross as a condemned criminal just as every other criminal hung - naked. Exposed to the jeering and shaming of the crowd. There is no sense of shame we feel that he hasn’t also felt.

Dysphoria - While Jesus probably never felt dysphoria related to gender, he has experienced the feeling of being in the wrong body. The one who had no sin was made sin for us the Bible says. This is the ultimate experience of being in the wrong body.

Death - Jesus entered fully into our futility and death. He death on the cross was real. He didn’t merely faint and felt better later. His death was confirmed when a soldier pierced his side to make sure.

The point is that in his body Jesus took upon himself what we were ourselves are subjected to, so that we could be healed. As we’ve already seen, the author of Hebrews puts it this way:

Hebrews 4:14–15 “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”

We do not have a high priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses. He can because he has experienced them with us and for us and, importantly, as us. Jesus was tempted and tested in every way we are. Jesus felt the temptation to over eat. To drink too much. He was tempted to lust. He was tempted to retaliate against those who wronged him. He experienced the tests of betrayal, being abandoned by those he had poured his life into, being lied about. Jesus has felt the dread of death closing in. In fact, the only way that Jesus was not like us was that he experienced our full humanity without giving in to our sin.

Again, something Superman could never do.

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We can live our lives looking for a Superman. Searching for that next person or thing or drug that promises to give us the peace/security/happiness we desire. Functional/false savior.

If only I could lose weight, then...

If only the right person would come along...

If only we could get this law passed...

We can also live our lives believing we are Superman. Looking to our self and our own strength to solve our problems. Attitude - often unstated/unrealized - I am and have all I need to succeed. If you are particularly gifted this may work for a while. But you WILL reach the end of your own ability where you inner Superman no longer works. What will you do then?

Or

We can surrender our lives to the Son of Man. To the one who became like us in every way so that he might utterly save us. When we face the limitations of our body, when we experience shame or frustration with our body, when we linger at death’s door, we can turn to One who can actually help us. Who understands. Who has walked ahead of us and has the power to see us safely through to the other side.

And when we do that, we discover God’s promise: Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We discover that the mercy and grace of God was there all along. And that it is enough.

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Let me finish with a story. I want to be a good pastor. I want to lead well. I want to be a good preacher. If I’m ruthlessly honest, I want to hear praise and compliments every week.

What is also true is that I can do a lot of this job in my own strength. I’m not a genius, but I’m just intelligent enough that I can craft a sermon every week that is scriptural, is fairly well put together, that ticks all the boxes of what a sermon should be.

But I was convicted this week that I tend do this a lot in my strength. I am my own Superman. But let me tell you something: being Superman isn’t enough. Not for this job. Not for this calling. And if all I ever offer is Kevin’s best, it will fall short. I need the Son of man, not another Superman.

And you do too. As we close, I wonder if God isn’t speaking to some of you right now. That you are seeing places in your life where you are your own Superman, your own savior. Where you are the hero of your own story, and you’re doing everything in your own power.

And you’re exhausted and you’re ready to quit. I’m wondering what is God asking you to surrender to him. Something that you’ve been trying to push through under your own power. Sometimes it’s just holding on to the fear or anxiety you have about kids, money, health, and God is telling you to let that anxiety go. It’s killing you. It’s sucking the joy from your life. Quit looking for a Superman, quit trying to be Superman, and surrender whatever it is to the Son of man who is even this second at God’s right hand as your intercessor and advocate. Could we do that right now?

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Communion

The problems we experience with our body were never ultimately going to be solved by our body. We may be able to lesson some aspects of our bodily brokenness. We might be able to cure some of our ills and pains. But we cannot fix what has been broken. The only hope for us is the body of Jesus, broken fully and finally for us. When the brokenness of our body becomes too much to bear, we rest in the One whose body was broken for us. And by looking to his broken body we find hope for our own.

On the night that he was betrayed...

Come Holy Spirit and overshadow these elements. Let them be for us your body and blood so that we can participate in your redemptive work for us. May we find mercy, healing and salvation through the finished work of the cross. Amen.