A Better Kind of Hero

A Better Kind of Hero March 29, 2017

notre-dames-273745_640_opt

Well, I survived the blood letting and managed to come home and then do nothing else the rest of the day, which, of course, exhausted me. Took the usual nap and went to bed early and then slept bitterly in. Surely answers will be forthcoming today and through the week. Pretty sure I need more something or other than just having my chakras realigned, or something.

My doctor yesterday kept saying, and I thought it was pretty great, that ‘the body is supposed to be the hero.’ She said it like seven times and each time she shook her head sadly and followed up with various explanations about how, in point of fact, the body many times just isn’t the hero, just doesn’t do whatever you want it to do, and doesn’t do it in mysterious unfathomable ways that science hasn’t yet understood.

So I came home and lay back on the couch, not doing any of the things I really want to be doing, and thought about heroism. It’s not really my thing. I never click on the hero stories of Facebook–the firefighter that rescues the tiny dog, the naturalist who saves the owl, the stooped old man who meets all the children he saved in the holocaust. I always mean to click on them, but I am usually too busy watching food videos and in other ways avoiding reality.

Honestly, what I love best about Christianity is that there are no heroes. It’s not the religion of the strong and the awesome. The Bible, in particular, is not hagiography. If you’re looking for a hero, a Heracles, a Superman, it is entirely the wrong book. Not a single living soul comes out looking good and pure as the wind driven snow. All except one and he dies a humiliating and brutal death. No, the only ones who Might be heroes–David, Abraham, Esther, Mary–either have moments of serious moral failings, or stand out for the pressing danger of their material helplessness in dangerous circumstances. The whole point of Mary and Esther is that they jolly well could perish in the gathering darkness, but God overcomes the powers and principalities of this world to rescue them at the eleventh hour. Sure, they bear up with incredible fortitude and do what’s required in the moment, which is surely heroic, but it’s the heroism of weakness and death, of trust, of humility. Which, I really think is the very opposite of the heroism desired by the world.

Heroism in the world amounts to personally overcoming great odds by grit and determination, by never giving up, by saving the world one bunny at a time, by maybe even wearing a cape. Whereas heroism in the Bible is miserably accepting the power of God as sufficient for the Day because you yourself have neither determination, nor skill, nor moral goodness, nor bunny saving abilities. You sit there, bitter unto death, and accept that God is greater than you and that you needed him to save you. Then maybe he works through you to do something moderately useful, but nobody gives you credit because it was obvious that you weren’t doing it on your own steam. They give credit to God, which was the whole point. No one gets to boast. So that’s kind of a bummer.

So, yes, the body is not a hero. And neither is the soul. But it can be helped. It can be given help to get better, to do more. The soul can heal from the various slings and arrows of the enemy, of sin, of the gathering darkness. Very few of us have to be a martyr, or have to suffer all that much. We can bear up, through grace, under our various afflictions which are Not That Bad. Because we do have a hero who suffers and dies, who overcomes with his own body the failures and sickness of ours, a hero who goes past the veil into the heavens to constantly and tirelessly intercede for us to the One who holds all power and authority and dominion together in himself. For that one, weakness and trust are the most valued of all qualities a person can possess–if they drive you, in desperation, towards himself.

Pip pip.


Browse Our Archives