The Superhero's Call: On Becoming a Super, Part 3
March 2, 2020

     You don't have to believe in the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus's body to participate in the redemption story told in the Christian gospels.  For that matter, you don't even have to "be a Christian" to participate in the redemption story told in the Christian gospels.  My more theologically conservative friends will disagree with me on these points, the first one especially.  They have their reasons, and I have mine.  

     But we don't have to agree on these propositions down to the last jot and tittle – or at all – to agree on the following: (1) there is a price to pay for living out of sync with the deepest order of Creation; (2) great sacrifice must be made to pay that price, which is the price of redemption; (3) the Christian gospels illustrate that great sacrifice through the crucifixion of Christ; and (4) all three synoptic gospels relay Jesus's teaching that to truly follow him, a person must "take up the cross."  Thus, the Jesus of these gospels invites – indeed, commands – those who would follow him to actively participate in the sacrifical work of redemption, which is the work of realigning themselves and the world with the deepest order of Creation.  

     This is no small task.  The deepest order of Creation is the order that gives rise to life, the order in which death gives way to life, the order in which death is transformed into new life.  But death – and more specifically, the willing, sacrificial death of one who has properly prepared for the task – remains the doorway to such new life.  There is no life without such death.

    And it is possible to believe in the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus's body and have no genuine comprehension of this truth whatsoever.   

   I, for one, want to live a redeemed and redemptive life.  I want to know the transformation of sacrificial death in my bones.  This means I have to practice it.  If I want more life, then I must, in a thousand small ways, everyday, acquaint myself with and participate in the kind of death that gives way to life, the kind of death that is a sloughing off of all those things that are out of sync with the deepest order of Creation.  I have a long way to go, but I have heard the call.

     It is the superhero's call, from the ultimate Superhero. Take up your cross.