No Heroes... Please!
Why do we witness such a desire to create heroes, even in today’s culture? We see it everywhere, from our celebrities and athletes, to the neighbor who saved the old lady’s cat. As someone who served in the military, on occasion the title has been even said of me and my counterparts. There seems to be something embedded in mankind that causes us to seek out and identify, “heroes”. Now, this is not at all a hit on the military, or even the nice man down the street who saved the old lady’s cat, I do think there is something noble in each of these acts. But what I do question is our need to categorize anyone, as a hero!
What is a hero? According to the dictionary, a hero is defined as a person who is idealized for courage, achievements or noble qualities, a person who is admired by others. Now, maybe you are thinking, “what’s the problem with that?” so here’s the problem with it… We are still talking about a person! Time and time again we shoot ourselves in the foot, and rather than learn from our mistakes we continue playing with the safety off! Human beings, all of us, even the most noble, are, at best, still human beings, sinful, fallen human beings, capable of both good and bad in a worldly sense. The second we elevate human beings to the category of hero, we have attempted to take the one noble act, or attribute and place it in a bubble, whereby we ignore everything else about the person. This overlooks that there is more to humans’ then only specific actions, accomplishments or qualities.
We have seen this all over the place, whether it be political figures who were once headed for stardom busted for adulterous relationships, movie stars and athletes leading the way in social issues, arrested for domestic violence, or the hometown hero who gets busted for kiddie porn. All of them once heroes of the culture, until the rest of their lives caught up with them! Yet, as a culture we continue to act shocked by it. When the nice old man who saved the old lady’s cat, turns out to be torturing little kids for fun in his basement, we say things like “I can’t believe HE or SHE would do that”. When the truth is that we set ourselves up for it, by overlooking the one thing that is most verifiably factual, our own human moral depravity.
It was Malcolm Muggeridge who said that, “the depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” The older I get, the more I can see it in myself, and as a father the more I recognize it’s not something that’s taught, or caught, it’s just there, present in our very being and essence; we are from the time of our birth, children of wrath. If you aren’t a Christian, you may not want to admit it, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Have you always done what is right? In every decision have you maintained moral perfection? What are your deepest darkest thoughts of? What has kept you from acting on them? The list of questions can go on and on, but I am pretty sure I don’t need to.
So, why a hero? Because the truth is, we need one! It is exactly because we are depraved, that we seek heroes anywhere we can find one. It’s what much of the culture around us looks to for hope. It lets us believe the lie, that we actually can be good enough! Good enough for what, you ask? How about, being good enough for God, it is Him who we are trying to justify ourselves before, whether you believe in Him or not? The bad news is, it just can’t be done. No matter how good, or moral you and I are, we are still, in our core, completely depraved. We desperately need a hero, a savior, but the problem is that it’s not going to be someone who is a human just like us. There’s no politician, or celebrity, or neighbor that can truly be the kind of hero we need. We need a hero who isn’t depraved at all, but also a hero who is big enough to cover all of our depravity. The answer is only found in Jesus Christ, He is the only real hero, fully man, and fully God. Untouched by our depravity, yet big enough to cover our depravity by paying the penalty for it all. When we repent and trust in Him, He becomes the only hero we will ever need. We can appreciate the amount of common grace found in the world, be thankful to God for it, but, no more heroes please! Jesus Christ is enough.