Heroes

I like the Star Wars Epic. I see the scrolling golden text and I am filled with giddiness. Judging from the franchise’s staying-power and financial success, I think that I am not the only one! I think there are a lot of aspects about Star Wars that makes it so likeable. I think everyone secretly wants to be caught up in some grand adventure, where their dearest loved ones are in danger, and the dreamer is the one who springs to action at the last minute, defeating all odds to rescue all those in danger. I think everyone wants to be a Hero.

I remember as a child that most of my imaginations had a common plot line: One of my friends, or members of my family (or the girl I had a crush on at that point in time) was in trouble, and I, with all the gusto my 60 pound body could muster, took it upon myself to save that person from certain doom. It was a simple plot, but the circumstances could be varied greatly, and they always had the same happy outcome: Everyone was safe in the end. It was my imagination; of course I was the hero!

I wrote a series of short stories that involved my older brother, and myself, as well as our respective best-friends Mark and Trent. In each of the stories someone was in trouble, or a mystery had to be solved, and even though adults were baffled or unable to take action, the four of us were ready to serve.

I don’t imagine hero stories for myself much anymore, although I have caught myself “saving” my fiancé a couple of times! I usually imagine different things, like cars that I want, or computer parts that I want, or books that I want. I want, I want, I want… far less noble, I think, than the imaginations of my youth. In fact, I think that young me might be a bit disappointed with what the current me imagines; cars and computers are awfully dull compared to an action story filled with speeding trains, power-hungry bad guys, and damsels in distress!

I think young me, if he did exist, would be right to be upset with me. I think that young people sometimes tap into something, quite inadvertently that is vital to the human story. This something is what we “educated adults” would call “Truth” I think. I did not realize it then, but at that young age, I was recreating the Jesus event in my own life, I was doing Christianity. The New Testament Scriptures are peppered with phrases like “in humility regard others as better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3) and “Be Subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21).

Even if it was only imaginatively, what I was unknowingly doing was emptying myself (Phil 2:1-11) for others, doing in my mind what Christ did in the world, for all people. It is this self-emptying that we are called to. We aren’t called to wax philosophical laboriously over who really wrote the book of Hebrews, we are supposed to go out there and serve. Now, it may not take the form of a rescue, and hopefully it is more than just imagination, but service is indeed what we are called to.

Are we ready to put away our adult imaginations and remember the truth of what we are called to? Are we ready to live cruciform “cross-shaped” lives? Are we ready to be Heroes?