From Whence Come Heroes?
Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a hero. That desire is one of the things that has not changed as I’ve gotten older, but what has changed is my idea of what a hero is. Perhaps my young self was too influenced by “King Arthur and his Knights,” but my idea of a hero was slightly tilted towards powerful men singlehandedly saving cities, children, and of course, beautiful women.
My idea of heroism has gone through a dramatic shift over the past many years. Heroes, I realized, may never see the limelight, even in this day and age of constant media presence. Some see only the barred boxes of light that come in from their prison cell. Some just live their lives in ways that glorify God, and are taken for granted by everyone around them. (I wrote about one such hero here.)
And sometimes heroes come from the most unlikely of sources. With all the news the past few years coming out of the Anglican church, in my mind that is unlikely source for heroes. And yet, men like John Sentamu arise. Born in Uganda, the Most Reverend John Sentamu is the second-highest cleric in the Anglican church. I know very little of his personal beliefs, but I admire any hero who can defy convention in his own ranks and preach this truth:
The mistake of many is to treat the Christian faith like an ideology - looking, as it were, for Jesus Christ among the dead. Beyond doubt study is necessary but Jesus isn’t only someone to be studied; he is someone to be met and lived with every day. He isn’t only a figure in a book - the Bible - even if that book is the greatest in the world; he is a living presence. There are those who regard Jesus as the greatest man who ever lived - but who then died. That won’t do. Jesus isn’t dead - he is alive. He isn’t merely a hero of the past - he is a living reality, the Lord of the present.
Perhaps, when everything is said and done, the definition of a hero is one who lives life for the commendation of the Father. Perhaps true heroism is what I wrote about in today’s Weekly Reminder:
In the parable of the feast in Luke 14, as you recall, all of the people invited to the feast found excuses as to why they could not come - one was recently married, another had to look at a plot of land, and a third had to investigate a new yoke of oxen. They were all too engrossed in their own lives to go to the meal that had been prepared for them.
So the host sent out his servants to the “highways and hedges” to find people to come to his feast. I used to wonder why such a big deal was made of this relatively small part of the plotline - and then I realized that it was not a small part of the plotline at all. It was, in fact, the heart of the story. And in this case, the heart of the story is the essence of God’s heart for His people. In the same chapter he makes this promise:
“But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”