The fight scenes in the new Superman movie could
have used more creativity. There were basically only two fight moves: (a) ramming
the other guy into a building, and (b) throwing the other guy into a building. Don’t
get me wrong, the effects in Man of Steel
were spectacular, but the older Superman movies had an epic quality that is
hard to top. Remember in Superman 2
when Zod makes Superman kneel down to him and take his hand, then Superman
crushes it? Brilliant.
Superman 3
was my favorite, but that was because I was 8. I thought the movie was hilarious,
but again, that was because I was 8. Thirty years later… not so much. However, even
today there is one part of that movie that remains truly epic. More than that,
this scene moves me as a Christian. I am not kidding.
What happens is that Superman gets exposed to some
synthetic kryptonite, but because the formula is wrong it doesn’t kill him.
Instead, it makes Superman turn evil. He turns into a jerk who punches holes in
oil tankers, messes up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, gets drunk and hits on sleazy
women. Finally, evil Superman lands in a junkyard. He goes through an internal
crisis and splits into two halves.
Now, there is Clark Kent, in a
suit and tie, who represents his good side and there is five-o’clock-shadow
Superman who embodies his evil side. The epic fight begins. Superman fights
himself. At first, evil Superman pummels Clark Kent who barely puts up a fight.
Finally, Clark Kent starts fighting back, but evil Superman fights dirty. The
fight drags on and eventually evil Superman puts unconscious Clark Kent into a
metal crusher. We hear him scream, but then he rips through the side of the
machine in a rage, grabs evil Superman by the throat and chokes the living
daylights out of him until he is dead.
This is what the Christian life is like. There is a
battle inside every believer between good and evil. The Bible refers to these
two sides as the Spirit and the flesh. For example, Galatians 5:17 states:
For the desires of the flesh are
against the Spirit, and
the desires of the Spirit are against
the flesh, for
these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to
do.
These two sides are sometimes spoken of as the “old
man” and the “new man” (Eph. 4:22-24). In Romans 7:13-25 the Apostle Paul
describes this battle in his own heart. You see, when a sinner trusts Christ as
his Savior, he becomes something new. God’s Spirit comes inside him and starts
to change him from the inside out. The new man is our new true identity, but there is always the old sinful part of us that
remains and tries to stay in control. The old man fights dirty. This is a grueling
fight that will rage on and on until our dying day.
The problem is that we often don’t put up the
fight that we should. We play defense and let the old self take cheap shot after cheap shot. We don’t get aggressive in our fight against sin. We need to remember that the Bible actually calls us to murder the old man. For example, Romans 8:13 and Colossians 3:5
tell us to “put to death” or “mortify” (KJV) the old sinful self. These are
violent images.
That’s why I like Superman 3. It is a picture of what I feel going on in my heart. It
is a fight. This movie reminds us that there comes a time to stop being
kicked around by the old man. There comes a time to get angry, and with God’s
help and power, to use all our strength to strangle the daylights out of the old man.
