We don’t need another hero, we just need to know the way home

A play on the lyrics from the song of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), on the same day as The Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the title of this article shines a light today, as every day, on the Lord God, Creator of the Universe.

The Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn last occurred on 1623 and is thought to possibly align, timewise, to the Christmas Star event at the time of Christ’s birth.

We have a situation this year, as we had each year for around 2,024 years, where we contemplate the unthinkable — 

God coming into the world, in the flesh, incarnate in all deity and all humanity

§     to live as we live, yet as sinless, 

§     to teach us how to live with a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone, 

§     to point us through signs and wonders to God’s power like nobody before or since,

§     to suffer and be rejected as much as anyone could or ever has,

§     to die on a Roman cross, scourged, vilified, sullied, shamed, and abandoned by all,

§     to rise again on the third day, rebuilding the ruins of God’s Holy Temple,

§     to ascend on High to be with the Father once again.

Each of these seven statements of fact are profound in their remarkableness.  Perhaps the most remarkable fact is, no matter how much we study the life of Christ, we can never tap the fathomless reality of how incredible Jesus is.  Plumb each of the above statements and it simply leaves us in awe.

We don’t need another hero ....

...... we just need to know the way home — to him.

Everything that was established through him revolves around him, just as the planets continue in their orbit, reminding us every now and then of the miraculous nature of the physical universe, as displayed, in the present case, every four hundred years — of his birth.

The physical universe blows our minds.  The more we study it, the more we know, the MORE our minds are blown.

We don’t need another hero ....

..... we really don’t.

Indeed, if this life teaches us ANYTHING, it’s that we’re all destined to get sucked into the vortex of heroes of our own design — sports stars, musicians, TV and movie stars, motivational speakers, our family members, our dreams, our appearance, and even our own lives, etc.

Every single one of us has a worship dilemma — we worship what we shouldn’t and fail to worship who we should.  And it doesn’t matter by and large whether we have ‘faith’ or not.  We’re all prone to devoting our lives to idols.

Christians tend to worship their favourite world famous Christian speakers, and they often hold up their own pastors as heroes.  Evidence of this is pastors are either lauded as exceptional and revered or they’re eventually thought of as ‘average’ — who never ascended to the lofty heights they should have. And then there’s the one who descended into the dirt.  If a pastor has descended to the dirt, they’re there because once upon a time they were placed on a pedestal they couldn’t ascend to; only God could, can and does.  This hero worship ought to make us sick.

Pastor Dale Stephenson once said to a throng of us pastors, “You’re not as good as people think you are and you’re not as bad as people think you are.”

Truth is, we’re all human.  The President of the United States, the Queen of England, the Pope, these people are all human, and they’re all completely unworthy of our worship — respect, yes, but not worship — and, indeed, these offices exist in their most basic form to point us to God, which is to rule with a power of beneficence for all.

We don’t need another hero ....

..... we really don’t.

When we take up a hero in human form, we place our hopes in what can never satisfy us.  We place our hopes in inevitable disappointment for the betrayal we stand to experience when they don’t measure up.  Humanity WILL fail us.  We ascribe to a person too much power.  And we commit to a futile journey.

Every day of our lives we’re on a journey.

We’re not home here on this earth; this earth is here so we FIND our way home.  Everything on this earth is a pointer to something infinitely better.

Worship anyone else other than Jesus and commit to a journey to not only nowhere, but to eternal frustration and to the defeat of our purpose and hope.

You don’t need another hero.  He died for you about two millennia before you were even conceived.  We have a hero; the only one we’ll ever need.  And with Jesus as our hero, we can live equal with all humanity.  And that’s the way life’s supposed to be.