Superman

It takes Clark Kent 3 seconds in a revolving door or a phone booth to go from average to awesome. It’s impressive to say the least. He’s really the first of his kind to figure out how to do it. One moment he’s a run-of-the-mill, blue-collar civilian, but before you know it, he becomes Superman; flying everywhere and saving everyone. It’s thrilling, and inspiring, and never disappointing. He’s handsome, and brave, and always courteous. The things he’s accomplished with that red cape on his back makes his life worth watching, as millions of people all over the world would attest.

 

First introduced in 1938, Superman has captured the attention of children everywhere ever since. And it seems that, perhaps, he’s left many of them with the impression that, as adults, sanctification would happen faster than it does. But the world needs to know something: Mr. Kent might be able to achieve perfection in less than 60 seconds, but you can’t. And neither can I. If there was a short-cut to absolute generosity and self-sacrificial service like he had, someone would’ve found it by now. But unfortunately, there is no fast-tracking your development. Even worse, there is no secret phone booth for the Christian. There’s no corner of the city where you can privately undergo a profound spiritual makeover and then emerge as an otherworldly superhero. The transformation of a Christian might be radical, but it certainly isn’t confidential. The process of growth that takes place in the believer happens slowly, publicly, and oftentimes, embarrassingly. When Clark Kent goes from average to awesome, no one sees it happen, but when disciples of Christ do it, the whole world watches.

When you volunteer for discipleship, you’re volunteering for humiliation.

The Original

In the days before revolving doors and phone booths, Jesus recruited run-of-the-mill, blue-collar civilians, and turned them in to disciples through a challengingly slow, highly visible process. Every scene of their character renovation was raw and real. They walked on water, but they also sank. Casting out demons one day, but then failed the next. They were commended by Jesus, but they were also rebuked by Jesus. The final cut includes some of their biggest failures for an audience larger than Superman could ever fathom. Discipleship, unlike Hollywood, offers no makeup or costumes, no editing, no scripts, and certainly no retakes. When you volunteer yourself for discipleship, you’re volunteering yourself for humiliation.

 

Could you imagine how arduous & disappointing feature films would be if all the raw footage were left in there? Consider the innumerable out-takes of a film like Superman, and how they would diminish his glorious persona if we all watched him forget his lines and trip over his own stupid cape. The Man of Steel suddenly becomes the man-of-real, and nobody’s even impressed by him anymore. It shouldn’t take too long before you realize that your life in Christ is going to be very unlike the Adventures of Superman. The ugly garments of your old self don’t come off as easily as they do for fictional characters. No one gets to hide them in a phone booth and simply walk away; not you, not I, not even Apostles got to do that. So if you’re the kind of person who’s prone to making unsanctioned edits to their own footage just to keep from being embarrassed, the kind who always needs to be seen as a superhero by the audience whose applause you love, quit it. You’re mocking the Director and you’re ruining the show. If the Movie-Maker would have you look like a fool, and if He wants to include just as many bad parts as He does good ones, then humble yourself and join the cast. If you’re not careful, you might be writing yourself out of the film altogether.

 

But why? Why does it take so long? Why can’t it happen faster? And why does it hurt so much? Why do I have to feel like an idiot all the time? And why doesn’t He let me do this in private where no one has to see how un-spiritual I actually am? Why can’t I just play pretend like Christopher Reeves?

 

Well, the reason He chooses weaklings like us, and the reason He chose fools like Andrew & Philip & Paul, is because He wants to save your glorification until later. Remember, you are not in the glorification stage, you are in the sanctification stage. Big difference. Glorification will come, but not now. Until it does (and it may be a while yet), there will be frustration, slow progress, humiliation, and pain. It might not be normal for guys like Superman, but it most certainly is for the disciples of Christ. It always has been. And it will be until this flick is finally over.

Today

Twenty centuries later, Jesus is still up to the same thing: Recruiting run-of-the-mill, blue-collar civilians, and then turning them in to disciples: “Not many wise, not many powerful, not many noble are called. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important” (I Cor.1:26-29). It’s still a painfully slow procedure, pockmarked by failure & embarrassment, but it’s the process He’s ordained for us to go through in order to become a little more ‘super’ and a bit more ‘heroic’.