Isaiah 50:5-9a/ James 2:14-18/ Mark 8:27-35
I am going to mention a few names and you tell me what their job-title is.
The names are Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four.
So what is their job-title? Answer – Superheroes!
And these Superheroes have been making a comeback on the movie scene, the latest was Batman with “The Dark Knight Rises”.
And a few months ago there was also a movie about Superheroes called “The Avengers” and it featured Superheroes like Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America and Thor.
Yes, those are the Superheroes, and they usually wear colourful tight suits over muscular contoured bodies.
So their job-title is Superheroes. And what about their job-description?
It is to fight against the bad guys and to save the world from some kind of devastating danger, and also to stop the bad guys from taking over the world.
Watching the Superheroes movies gives us a good feeling because it is always a happy ending.
Oh yes, the bad guys will seem to win a bit at the beginning and even give the Superheroes a tough time and cause some damage.
But in the end, the good guys will win and the bad guys get a trashing, and the Superheroes will continue to protect the world.
And that’s the way we like it. We feel good about it. Whether we admit it or not, we like the Superheroes.
That might be because we are looking for a real hero.
We want someone to fight our battles for us whenever we get bullied, we want someone to protect us whenever we are threatened, we want someone to save us whenever we are in danger.
And the need becomes more intense especially when the bad guys seem to be over-running and over-powering the good guys.
Such was the case during the time of Jesus. The people were waiting and yearning for the coming of the Messiah.
The belief was that this Messiah would free the people from the oppression of their enemies, which at that time was the powerful Roman army.
The Messiah would be a mighty and invincible warrior and he would trash the enemies and crush them thoroughly.
And this Messiah would bring the people to a glorious independence and live in peace and freedom.
Such were the thoughts of Peter when he proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, which is another title for the Messiah.
Not only Peter had these ideas. The rest of the disciples, and the people too had similar ideas.
When people are desperate for a Saviour, they wouldn’t want anything less than a Superhero.
So we can imagine their reaction when Jesus began to teach them that the Christ was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and to be put to death. And after three days to rise again.
For the Christ, the Saviour, the “Superhero” to suffer and even to die was totally unacceptable to them.
So Peter began to remonstrate with Jesus. To remonstrate means to make a forceful protest and to object violently.
Because this cannot happen to the Christ! It should not happen. It goes beyond all logic and expectation.
Because if the Saviour were to suffer and die, then they would be finished. There will be no more hope.
That would not be a good ending, and that would not give a good feeling. Never mind about that “after three days will rise again”.
What the people, and also what we want to see, is that the bad guys get trashed and our enemies get hell for doing all that evil.
And better still, we stand victorious over the bad guys, and have them beg for mercy.
But if we really want to understand Jesus and about carrying the cross and following Him, then we have to let go of this illusion of victory.
The true victory does not belong to the make-believe Superheroes or to the mighty and powerful bad guys.
The true victory belongs to the humble and the lowly and also to the unlikely.
Well, recently, the arrival of two giant pandas brought about some kind of “panda-monium” in Singapore.
For me it made me recall an animated movie called “Kung Fu Panda”.
Somehow the title already tells us that it’s a joke because kung fu and pandas don’t go together, for obvious reasons.
The movie is about an obese, clumsy and bouncy giant panda who finds himself designated as the prophesied Dragon Warrior, much to his own disbelief and also the disbelief of the other highly trained martial arts exponents.
His master was tasked to prepare him to stop an evil powerful snow leopard from destroying the inhabitants.
The master thought that it was a hopeless and futile task but nonetheless there was this Dragon Scroll which was said to teach limitless power, and the evil snow leopard was out to get it too.
Well the master and the big fat panda managed to get to the Scroll first, but they were utterly disappointed because there was nothing but a blank reflective surface on the scroll.
With all hope lost, the master sent panda and the rest home, and the panda blamed himself for being a useless nothing.
When panda reached home, his adopted father, who is a goose and runs a noodle shop, consoled him and revealed that the secret ingredient to his famous noodle soup is actually “nothing”!
He explained that things become special only when people believe in them.
Then panda realized that this “nothing” is precisely the secret of the Dragon Scroll. (As for rest of the movie, please watch it :-P)
And that is also the secret of the cross – to be nothing.
In the words of Jesus it is to renounce oneself and take up the cross and follow Jesus. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it and anyone who loses his life for Jesus and for the sake of the gospel will save it.
No Super-hero can save us; after all they are just make-believe.
Yet salvation and victory comes in the most unlikely and unexpected form of the cross on which Jesus is crucified.
The cross is about emptiness and nothingness, and yet in that movie, the big fat panda discovered that nothingness is indeed the secret to the limitless power and victory.
But the secret to the limitless power of the cross and its victory over evil, demands that we empty ourselves of false hopes and expectations.
It’s in being nothing that we will receive everything. Because power and victory will be given to those who have nothing.
Let’s believe it because that is what Jesus and the cross is all about.