Superman v. Superman

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. 

Why Do You Want to be Like Jesus?

Never underestimate the diabolical dexterity of the human heart. We have an amazing ability to contort virtue into sin—all the while believing that we are doing what is noble. We have the ability to climb onto God’s throne while simultaneously believing that we are humbly beneath it.  

I read a sharp description of this in H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture as he was describing the views of Christians similar to Martin Luther. When we realize the depth of human sin, we start to see the wide variety of ways that we subtly try to replace God as God. Niebuhr writes:

The will to live as gods, hence without God, appears in man’s noblest endeavors, that is, those that are noblest according to human standards. Man whose business it is to reason exalts reason to the position of judge and ruler of all things; they call it the divine element in man. Those who have the vocation of maintaining order in society deify law itself—and partly themselves. The independent, democratic citizen has a little god inside himself in an authoritative conscience that is not under authority.

Thinkers believe the power of their thinking is King. Rule keepers think rules are King. Individualists think their opinions are King. But it is not only the rest of the world that plays these games inside their hearts.  Some people who desperately want to be Christ-like want that for the wrong reasons. Niebuhr continues:

As Christians we want to be the forgivers of sins, the lovers of men, new incarnations of Christ, saviors rather than the saved; secure in our own possession of the true religion, rather than dependent on a Lord who possesses us, chooses us, forgives us. If we do not try to have God under our control, then at least we try to give ourselves the assurance that we are on His side facing the rest of the world; not with the world facing Him in infinite dependence, with no security save in Him (155).   

Do you want to be kind because you realize that God has been kind to you, or is it because you desperately want to feel that you are a kind person? Or is it because you want other people to believe you are a kind person? It is ironic that many Christians—who think they are supremely loving—end up causing damage because they would rather be thought well of than to tell the truth in love. You can’t out-love God without distorting love.

Why do you want to be Christ-like? Is it so that you can be the merciful hero who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds? For many of us, we try to live that way because we see that as a more attractive self-image than the reality that we are pitiful and helpless from the self-inflicted wounds of our sin. 

The paradox is that we should try to be like Him but we should not try to be like Him. Seek to be Christ-like, but do not seek to be Christ.