I have the haze and Putrajaya to thank for a day off, as they ordered a closure of all schools due to the unhealthy API readings in Selangor. So with time on my hands, I trooped off to immerse myself for 2 1/2 hours in the cold air-con and comfy seat of an almost empty cinema hall to ogle at Henry Cavill, strutting his stuff as the latest Superman -Man of Steel. Oh yes, minus the inside-out underwear, he was every bit a drop-dead handsome hunk, even tho I didn't like the almost perpetual frown on his face. The build-up to the climax was a slight bit draggy but I appreciated the effort to trace back Superman's 'roots' and the flash-back snapshots of his 2 sets of (fantastically wise) parents. As for the action, well, it was action enuf when it started flowing fast and furious towards the end, so much boom, boom, bang, bang mass and messy destruction.
But it was a little scene that stood out somewhat incongruously for a sci-fi movie that caught my attention most - when, caught on the horns of a personal dilemma, since he can trust neither his own kind from the alien planet Krypton nor humans of the world he grew up in, Superman went to church. And as he walks away, the priest tells him point-blank, "Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. Then the trust thing comes afterwards." Ha ha, talk about religious under-tones. What a classic statement. Nothing new to Christians of coz, our whole life is based on faith first and foremost. Jesus declared it in 2 words, "Just believe" (Luke 8:50) But that's the toughest call for humankind because we can't 'just' believe there is a God, much less a God who loves us. We definitely can't 'just' believe Jesus Christ came, died and rose again to save our souls. It's the same old same old arguments regarding proof (or rather lack thereof), that so many people hold back from believing the good news of a Savior who did everything so that we could be reconciled with our fellow man and with God. So as long as there is no 'conclusive evidence' either way, people will not or cannot 'just believe'. The problem is there is no other evidence beyond what is already documented of an event that took place 2000 years ago. Again and again man is confronted by only 1 central issue - the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On that alone stands the whole basis of the Christian faith. Some people side-step the issue as irrelevant to them since they are not into 'religion'. But it's not about religion per se. Rather it's about confronting ourselves as we are confronted with Jesus Christ.
There was a scene in the movie where Superman's human father says, "You are my son. But somewhere out there you have another father, and he sent you here for a reason. And even if it takes you the rest of your life, you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is." How true, we are born into this world for a reason, not just to eat, drink and be merry. Not just to do good and die. My life is not a mere 'flash in the pan' where I just breathe for maybe 70 years, then simply cease being and get reduced to zilch - meaningless dust and ashes. That may be ok to others, but personally, I refuse to accept that as it renders me in essence to being no better than my cat. I believe I am more than a physical body made up of a mass of bones, tissues, nerves and blood. I have soul and spirit and the state and destination of my being matters an awful lot to me. Of coz there are people who don't care or don't believe there is any existence beyond this life on earth; that's their prerogative. But once we decide to believe our life has eternal meaning and significance, like Superman's human father said, we owe it to ourselves to find out the reason therefor.
It took me 40 years to find out that the reason for my living and being is tied up with Someone I have never ever seen nor known personally. Tied up in and by the greatest unseen force ever known - love, and not just any love, but love beyond human comprehension. The more I try to understand it, the more I can only stand in awe of it. Sometimes I think we are so intent and insistent on getting answers to the what and how's of life, that we fail to appreciate the why's and wherefore's. Why do we 'fall in love'? Why do people die? Why can't we live forever? Why is there so much evil in the world? Why do some people suffer so much? Why is it God seems to contradict Himself sometimes? Why aren't all my prayers answered? Why, Why, tell me why is the usual refrain of a little child. Yet it really doesn't bother the kid much when you dare say 'Sweetie, I don't know, it just is.' The innocent kid can accept that, even if he may think you aren't very smart after all. It's (smart) adults who insist all the questions in the universe must be answered. So when there doesn't seem to be any or any satisfactory answer, some people just give up asking. But it's the 'why's' that force us to seriously consider the things that really matter , and lead us to decide one way or another, how we want to live our lives.
I always thought I was smart until I tried to understand why a total stranger would apparently and simply sacrifice his life for me. My (smart) mind tells me there are 10,000 reasons (and more) why I shouldn't believe it. But overiding all these, my heart tells me there is 1 reason why I should, tho it makes no sense; in fact it appears to be sheer madness. Yet Shakespeare said "There is method in madness." Someone else also said, "Love that is not madness is not love." Quite apart from all the perfectly smart questions I can ask about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the most important one is not how, but why. Why was Jesus sent here? Why did He willingly let Himself be hung on a cross? Why would He die for such as I? My mind cannot conceive of any 'good' reason, but after so many years of getting to know Him, my heart can only conclude that Jesus came to prove a Love so mad, to offer a relationship (not a religion) with Him as the only method that makes me be and become all that I am meant to be. Without Him, I can only be 'that much' good but I can never be the best that my Creator 'wired' me up to be. Every living thing on this earth is bound up in relationship; whether it's nature vs man, man vs man or man vs God. We can deny, reject, misuse or abuse relationships, but relationship is what gives meaning and significance to our lives.
I always assumed the letter "S" on Superman's suit was an acronym for his name, but it apparently isn't; it means "Hope" in the Krypton world. Hope. A word pregnant with promise. One of the 3 great 'anchors' that Apostle Paul talks of - faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Not a hope that says "Well, I think maybe there is a chance...." but one that's grounded on love that has already been proven 2000 years ago via a deal hammered out on an ugly cross, sealed by and in the blood of Jesus Christ, in a totally incomprehensible exchange of His life for mine. That's the faith relationship, carved out of sacrificial love, built on an everlasting hope that has defeated the greatest enemy of mankind - death. Not some temporary spine-tingling emotional high or fancy sweet words, but (literally) a blood-soaked, heart-wrenching, gut-splitting reality that hits you in the face and demands a response. Why does He love me so? I don't know...because He just does. No simpler (or harder??) faith, no higher hope, no greater love, no other method.
Superman was sent to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind. Yet he hid his real identity because his adoptive father warned that if the world found out who he really was, they'd reject him, convinced that the world wasn't ready to accept or believe in aliens from another planet living in their midst. Likewise Superman's real mother was concerned that her baby would grow up to be an outcast, a freak, and that humans would kill him for being different.
So it was with Jesus. He was sent to save us; He is the hope of all mankind. But the world He came into rejected Him, because they couldn't or didn't want to understand or believe. So humans killed him. As Apostle John put it, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive him" (John 1:10-11). It's the same old same old story, carried over from 2000 years ago. As it was then, so it is now - Jesus Christ is still being blasphemed, misunderstood, mocked, doubted, stripped naked in the court of theories and disbelieved. But no ridicule can make Him turn away from us; it's still we who turn away from Him. No death can keep Him down. His love never fails, even when we fail. That 1 reason is enough for me to believe.
"...He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem...... But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed " Isaiah 53:2-3,5
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