SOLEMNITY OF EASTER, C
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SUPER HERO OR ACTION HERO?
What is the difference between a super hero and and action hero? Both of them are champions, yes. But a super hero wins with barely a scratch because he has super powers to repel the enemy and his body knows no weakness, except for an occasional cryptonite.
An action hero is victorious too, but only after his body is bruised, bleeding, beaten to a pulp. That’s is why an action hero is shown at the end of a film surviving and yet barely alive. His body is broken. It is his spirit that emerges stronger than ever.
At the Resurrection, Jesus is not a super hero. He did not defeat his enemies by any super power. He did not escape death because he is above it. He is not spotlessly clean and immaculately sanitized.
Jesus is our faith’s action hero. He defeated his enemies but only after they submitted him to pitiless destruction. He truly bled, suffered, weakened, and died. They left him behind thinking everything was over. But now he lives! And he lives with signs of his pain, his torture, his wounds!
Jesus is the Risen One because he is the Wounded One. If the resurrection has any message for us who hope in it, then it is this. We must go through the death of the cross before we can emerge in the glory of the empty tomb.
Jesus was like a flying trapeze artist in a circus. He jumped into the dangerous void, let go of the bar he was clinging to so that he could grab a new bar that brought him to the other end. The process of letting go was frightening. It was a death to all that he knew and cherish. But only in doing that could he ever taste the joy of crossing over to the next stage of the journey.
Jesus is not a super hero. If he were, then we could not follow him, for we are not supermen and superwomen. Jesus is our faith’s action hero! He went through all the conceivable difficulties and yet through surrender to the Father and through the power of the Holy Spirit, he conquered and triumphed over all! This we can follow because he gives us the power to do as he did.
A Blessed Easter! Glory and Praise to You, Jesus, Hero of our Faith!
