What Makes a Hero?: The Death-Defying Ministry of Jesus

by Matt Rawle

Overview

What Makes a Hero? offers us an image of what it looks like to be victorious over trials and temptations. Looking at pop culture heroes and others through the lens of faith, Matt Rawle shows how Jesus turned the concept of hero on its head. In keeping with his theme “Pop in Culture,” the book examines how good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and overcoming adversity are fundamental to how Christians understand salvation. Heroes help us discern the good, fight for what’s right, define identity, execute justice, spark revolution, and save lives.


Rawle enters the Gospel story to tell quite a different victory story—one obtained through humility, obedience to the cross, and an empty tomb. How does Jesus redefine what it means to be a hero?


Additional components for a six-week study include a comprehensive Leader Guide, a DVD featuring Matt Rawle, a Worship Resources Flash Drive, and youth and children resources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501847936
Publisher:	Abingdon Press
Publication date:	12/19/2017
Series:	What Makes a Hero?
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	391 KB

About the Author

Matt Rawle is Lead Pastor at Asbury United Methodist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana. Matt is an international speaker who loves to tell an old story in a new way, especially at the intersection of pop culture and the church. He is the author of a new series of books titled The Pop in Culture Series. The series includes The Faith of a Mockingbird, Hollywood Jesus, The Salvation of Doctor Who, The Redemption of Scrooge, What Makes a Hero?, and The Gift of the Nutcracker.

Matt Rawle is Lead Pastor at Asbury United Methodist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana. Matt is an international speaker who loves to tell an old story in a new way, especially at the intersection of pop culture and the church. He is the author of Jesus Revealed: The I Am Statements in the Gospel of John as well as The Pop in Culture Series, which includes The Heart that Grew Three Sizes, The Faith of a Mockingbird, Hollywood Jesus, The Salvation of Doctor Who, The Redemption of Scrooge, What Makes a Hero?, and The Gift of the Nutcracker.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Good, Evil, and God

After a young Bruce Wayne witnessed the murder of his parents one night in a dark alley, the force behind Batman was born. Out of a desire to fight the kinds of criminals that changed his life that night, Bruce Wayne became a force of good dressed as a bat and armed with finely tuned physical and intellectual skills. He vowed never to use deadly force. From his inception in 1939, Batman has overcome adversity to become a pop-culture hero who continues to fight crime and inspire viewers to this day. In his relentless fight against the evil forces of the world, Batman has become a hero to millions of readers and viewers throughout the world.

Heroes lie at the center of the good-versus-evil stories we tell. Whether we are wide-eyed in front of the latest Batman movie, glued to Saturday-morning action cartoons, or puzzling through the vivid images in the Book of Revelation, we are drawn to the struggle between good and evil. When the Empire does strike back in the classic Star Wars film, we just know that the heroic Jedi will return and there will be a happy ending. Why does everything feel right when the cowboy in the white hat foils the plot of the hunched, mustached villain? How do we know that good will always win in the end? Could it be that we want the forces of good to win because we think that good is on our side?

The struggle between good and evil is so fundamental to understanding the world around us that across cultures we share a common story told in different ways. The heroes of our stories are characters who represent all of us. They are men and women who help us understand what is good, and they fight for what's right. We see ourselves in the hero stories we tell, which might be why our heroes never have it too easy. If Superman never sweats, the story isn't interesting, and we no longer identify with it. Our heroes are human. They struggle, fight, and persevere, but no matter the odds, they are victorious in the end.

Even though we like to see ourselves in our heroes' stories, our heroes are very much not like us. They are stronger than our muscles can manage and wiser than our feeble minds can comprehend. They move faster than our own clumsy bodies. They are not confined to past, present, and future. The hero is a picture of who we are and what we can never be, and this is why we need them.

A New Kind of Hero

Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

Ephesians 5:1-2

We look up to our heroes as role models, and we find in them great sources of inspiration. There is a natural desire to imitate the people we most admire. When there was a controversy in the church in Ephesus, Paul urged the congregation, "Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us" (Ephesians 5:1-2). Paul urges the congregation to imitate God's works by imitating what Jesus has done. In this way, Jesus takes on the role of a hero for us, and we seek to imitate his behavior because he is the supreme example of goodness and love.

Imitation is one of the first ways we learn about the world. I witnessed this in action one evening while I was giving my daughter a bath. "What does a duck say? Quack, quack!" I asked, as I paraded a yellow rubber ducky around the waves of lukewarm bathwater. I asked again, but before I could finish the question, she looked up at me and said, "Quack, quack!" I stopped. My face lit up with excitement. I asked again, "What does a duck say?" She answered, "Quack, quack!"

My daughter wasn't actually saying that a duck quacks; rather, she was mimicking my words in the game we had been playing for a couple of weeks. It's like a golfer watching videos of other golfers' swings, vocalists listening to famous opera singers, a student-teacher observing a third-grade classroom, or a child watching his dad clean a fish. We learn who we want to be by imitating those we already look up to. Imitation helps us discover the world around us, and our place within it.

At some point, we move away from imitation, and we begin to tell our own stories. We carefully step away from what is familiar, and we launch ourselves into the dangerous unknown, just like our beloved heroes before us. Both Luke Skywalker and Superman had to leave their home planets and strike out into an unknown world.

Do you remember a time when you took those first few steps away from what you knew? Maybe it was when you began to drive, and you visited a side of town you didn't know existed. Maybe you took a job offer and moved halfway across the country. Maybe it was when the doctor announced, "It's a girl!" and you quickly realized that your world was about to be turned upside down.

Batman's story began with a separation, when Bruce Wayne lost his parents. Jesus' ministry also started with a separation, but of a very different kind. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes:

Christ Jesus,
Philippians 2:5-8

Christ "emptied himself," to take on the flesh and blood of humanity in its fullness. He left behind all that was familiar for the sake of humanity. For example, before washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus "got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself" (John 13:4). He shed his outer robe in order to join the disciples and become a servant to them. This wasn't a loss so much as a way that Jesus welcomed the disciples, and us, into God's divine story. In other words, what we see as separation in our heroes' tales is understood as hospitality and sacrifice in the Gospel stories.

Once heroes muster the courage to separate themselves from the familiar, they often find themselves in the midst of trials that must be overcome for the story to continue. Not long after Princess Moana sailed away from Motunui in the Disney film Moana, she came face to face with the evil Kakamora. In order to find redemption, the Roman god Hercules had to complete twelve labors for King Eurystheus. In the Bible, David walked out onto the battlefield with a sling and a rock to face the towering Goliath, who mocked him on the other side. No matter the odds, it seems our heroes overcome whatever gets in their way.

Our heroes succeed through feats of strength, unparalleled cleverness, or the sheer unwillingness to give up. Jesus himself faced trials during his ministry: the temptation in the wilderness, frustration with the disciples who never seemed to understand, betrayal by Judas, denial by Peter, and ultimately death by crucifixion. Unlike other heroes, though, Jesus did not turn to strength, cleverness, or stubbornness in order to overcome his trials. He did not remove himself from the cross through divine strength. He did not outsmart Pontius Pilate. Instead, Jesus submitted to the agony of being nailed to the cross, he breathed his last, and he was buried in a garden tomb. But there was still a victory. Jesus' victory over death was not about power, or might, or God being stronger than the grave; rather, Jesus revealed God's desire that life would always have the final and everlasting word.

Jesus' story is both familiar and completely separate from us. His life, suffering, death, and resurrection mirror our own hero stories in many ways, but Jesus' story is much different. Jesus is the Messiah. It's not that Jesus is better, or stronger, or quicker, or wittier than the rest of us. Jesus is us, and at the same time he is altogether different. When we look to Jesus' story we find a common thread, but we also find that the thread is woven into a subversive, upside-down revelation of God's kingdom. Jesus is a new kind of hero.

Who are some of your heroes? What makes them heroic?

How can you be a hero in someone's life?

In what ways are you imitating Jesus' life?

Discerning the Good

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Matthew 7:18

One of the things that sets heroes apart from the rest of us is their solid understanding of good versus evil. Sometimes it's easy to tell the difference. We know instinctively that Superman is the good guy and Lex Luthor is the bad guy, but it's not always that simple. Maybe goodness is much more subjective than we are comfortable admitting. We see this in the story of King David, who early in his reign was seen as "like the angel of God, discerning good and evil" (2 Samuel 14:17). Near the end of his life, his vision became cloudy and dim, and when his son Solomon usurped the throne, David didn't even realize it (1 Kings 1:18). If we can imagine that King David wrestled with understanding goodness, then what hope is there for us?

Sometimes when we think about what is good, we think about the feeling something produces or how well something worked. Goodness, however, goes beyond a nice feeling or something pleasant. I know a good buffalo wing sauce when I taste one, but I would be hard-pressed to say something moral about it. Medicine can offer healing, lower a fever, and keep our minds alert, but ask any toddler how good it is to swallow an antibiotic!

Goodness also contains more than just how effective something is, like a good plan or a good sermon. Some Sundays when I've preached a good sermon, people enjoy the message but nothing good comes from it. Other Sundays when I didn't feel confident about my preaching, a new ministry is born and people ask to join our church.

Often, we judge goodness according to the result it produces. It's like when Jesus warned against following false prophets by saying, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit" (Matthew 7:18). It's true that we will know goodness according to its fruit, but it's not the fruit that makes the tree good. The work we do doesn't make us good or bad, and neither do those works earn or lose us salvation. Instead, the work we produce is a sign of our connection with God.

God is the source of good. Instead of thinking about goodness as what is pleasant or effective, we must understand that good is simply our word for God's activity in the world. But how can we tell which activities are of God and which are not? We could say that the good, the bad, and the ugly all come from God; but this doesn't sound like the gospel. Perspective matters. I've heard it said that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, but this suggests that it is God who is the one giving you trouble. This doesn't sound like the Gospel either.

Not everything we experience is from God. Trials, stumbling blocks, despair, and violence are not God's way of testing our faith. As Jesus says, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted" (Matthew 15:13). There are accidents, and tragedies, and atrocities that just happen, and those are not planted by God. Sometimes the most loving word we can hear or offer is difficult. Intervening when a loved one is struggling with addiction, refusing to stay in an abusive relationship, and speaking truth to power are far from pleasant endeavors, but they are good.

When do we finally understand something to be good or evil? Heroes seem to have a bent toward the big picture. In an old Chinese tale about good luck and bad luck, a farmer went out and found that his horse had run away and his neighbor said, "What bad luck." The farmer replied, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" The next day the horse came back with three other horses and his neighbor replied, "What good luck!" The farmer said, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" The next day the horses trampled the man's garden, destroying his crop. His neighbor said, "What bad luck." The farmer replied, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" The next season his garden produced twice as many vegetables because the soil had been turned, and his neighbor said. ... Things change with time and circumstance, and sometimes it's only by looking at the big picture that we can discern the good.

Rarely do you see heroes struggle to understand the difference between good and evil. They seem to know and to move into action. The rest of us aren't so gifted. Life can seem grayer than we are comfortable admitting. Thankfully, we don't have to spend much time deciding. When we do works of justice, mercy, and humility, we will see God, the source of goodness, working through all that we do.

Have you experienced something unpleasant that ended up being a good thing?

Have you experienced something you thought was great that resulted in something not so great?

Some things we experience are not from God. So, where are they from? Does it matter?

Evil and Nothingness

I cry to you and you do not answer me;
Job 30:20

I don't spend too much time talking about evil because there is sometimes a temptation to present evil as more interesting than good. It's like preaching on Judas during Holy Week, or on the devil during Lent. These might make colorful sermons, but they would miss the point. Just as goodness goes beyond how something feels or how effective something is, evil is not just what feels terrible or what fails.

Evil is nothingness. Much as good is our word for what God does, evil represents a void. Evil is nothing in the sense that it cannot stand on its own. Heroes reveal to us what it is we are striving for. Heroes can almost immediately tell the difference between good and evil because they are repelled by evil's nothingness.

The figure of the devil has its roots in the character named Satan, who is mentioned in the books of Job and Zechariah. The devil is evil personified, which places our understanding of the devil in a bit of a paradox. Evil is a shadow that cannot stand on its own. A shadow by itself is nothing but the absence of light. Theologically speaking, evil is made manifest when someone or something stands between us and the light of God shining through Christ. One way to look at evil is by thinking about the number -2. It is impossible to have -2 of something. I can't hold it in my hand. I can't put it in a box because -2 doesn't exist; at least, it only exists as an absence. You can have 2 fewer than something, but you can never have -2 in and of itself. The devil, being a manifestation of nothingness, places him in a paradox. The devil is the manifestation of nothingness, which drives him mad because he cannot exist within the grace of God. The devil is a shadow. Shadows are real, but they are only seen when we block the light. So, when we surround ourselves with the light of the resurrection, in essence, the devil does not exist.

As we explore good and evil, it's helpful to study loss and the emptiness it brings. One of the most profound stories about loss comes in the Book of Job. The saga begins almost like a superhero origin story: "There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil" (Job 1:1). Right from the beginning, the author frames the story with a stark contrast: you can either be upright or evil.

One day, the heavenly council gathers together for a staff meeting. God boasts about how blameless and upright Job is. Satan, playing the appropriate role of devil's advocate, suggests that if Job weren't so blessed in his life, he could end up cursing God. The Lord accepts Satan's challenge, and allows Satan to take control of all that Job loves with one condition: he cannot hurt Job himself in any way. In this story, evil is less about what happens to us and more about how we respond to what happens. This is our hero's obstacle to face, and as the story unfolds, Job copes with the misfortune and tragedy that befall him.

As his fortunes change and he begins to lose his possessions and the people he loves, Job succumbs to what sounds a lot like depression:

"And now my soul is poured out within me;
Job 30:16-17, 20-21, 28a

In this circumstance, Job is heroic in his honesty and his suffering. He is in despair, but he is also angry at God. He says, "As God lives, who has taken away my right, / and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter" (Job 27:2). But even through the bitterness of his soul, Job remains in conversation with God. He opens the way for all of us to experience a range of emotions with God, and this is the culmination of his hero's journey, the saving message he delivers through his story to help those who will read it for generations.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "What Makes a Hero?"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Abingdon Press.
Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction,
1. Good, Evil, and God,
2. Right, Wrong, and Holy,
3. Us, Them, and the Body of Christ,
4. Have, Have-Not, and the Kingdom of God,
5. Old, New, and Covenant,
6. Life, Death, and Resurrection,
Acknowledgments,
Notes,