My God Is Not a Super Hero

I really like literature and reading, and as such, series often appeal to me. I like to know the breadth and depth of a story, the whole complex mess. This year at school, I immersed my seniors in the idea of story and its heroes, beginning and ending with the idea that we create heroes because we live in a fallen world that only Christ can redeem.  As such, I have immersed myself in studying the heroes of literature and comparing them to the heroes this generation is creating through its favorite media forms—TV and movies. It was only natural that when Avengers: Infinity War by Marvel Comics debuted in the spring that my students would go see it and want to talk to me about it. However, at the time I was moving, so I told them to hold that thought until I could go see it. Well, yesterday I finally had a chance to go see it, and I have been stewing on it since.

Warning: Plot Spoilers Ahead . . .

My first reaction to the movie was to engage it on the level of enjoyment. I can easily suspend my disbelief and expect worldliness in anything made for the world’s enjoyment, so that’s not usually a problem if the language is not offensive and the sensual aspect is not there. As I told my husband after seeing the movie, there are light, humorous moments, such as Thor calling Rocket Raccoon “Rabbit” continually through the movie, which made me laugh out loud. There are tender moments between characters that love one another as well. There is the action that we crave, music that pulls at the heartstrings, and the tying together of many individual Marvel characters into one movie that makes this film appealing. But honestly, that’s about all the good I can say.

The movie begins with a bang. Literally, the Big Bang, which in this instance threw six stones out into the universe: Space, Reality, Power, Mind, Time, and Soul stones, called infinity stones. (Sigh.) When all these are merged, the person wielding them becomes far too powerful, in this case, a character named Thanos, who plans to use them to destroy fifty percent of the universe’s population in order to save it. The heroes of the movie make every attempt to keep him from attaining and uniting them. This is the premise of the movie, which I didn’t know before I went to see it (because there are so many plot spoilers out there, I avoided anything about it at all).

Not only does the movie tout evolution, but it also pokes at God and Jesus repeatedly, some of them much more subtle than others. The blatant one is when the half-human Star Lord, Quill, is asked who his master is. His reply goes something like this: “Who is my Lord? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?”  To say I was sorely disappointed is an understatement.

As the movie continued, Thanos’ concern with the planet got some more pokes in at God. He is concerned enough about the overpopulation and what it is doing to the planet to take action, so the commentary underlying this is if there is a God, He is unconcerned for the planet He has created, and He is unwilling to take action. When God does take action, like in the destruction of all that had breath in Genesis (except Noah’s family), He is seen by the world as prejudicial, harsh. Unlike Thanos, the god-like anti-hero of the movie who takes action to avoid any prejudice in his harsh destruction (the fifty percent will be random), Jesus prepares a kingdom for His before the foundation of the world (Matt. 25:34), so in the eyes of Marvel, Jesus must be a bad, prejudicial God.

To get the Soul infinity stone, Thanos must sacrifice his daughter so that he can destroy a world. God sent Jesus to die for us so that we might have life instead of destruction. Jesus came willingly to save, unlike Gamora, Thanos’ daughter  (interesting name, by the way as the people who die at Thanos’ hands turn to ash), who is murdered by her father so that he can destroy half the population of the universe. She begs to be saved and he tearfully sacrifices the thing he most loves, which in turn destroys the world.

When Thanos finishes his destruction, he sits down to watch the sunrise from a mountaintop. He has a god complex, does what he feels will “save” the world, and when finished with his work, he sits down and rests, watching the sun rise again. When Jesus sacrificed Himself, made purification for mankind’s sin, offering salvation (not destruction) to His creation, “He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.” Hebrews 1:1-4 tells us that it was fitting for Him to sit down because He was “the radiance of His glory,” was “the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” The contrast couldn’t be clearer: one murders to achieve his goal of a healthy universe while the other sacrifices Himself to save unhealthy souls on Earth.

This experience offered me some reminders. This world is broken, and the broken world offers worldly, broken entertainment options, and we can pierce ourselves with its falseness if we are unaware of the truth of the Word. The devil is a liar, and he woos the world by imitating the light. However, the ones who look like heroes cannot save, as this movie shows. It ends without hope, in darkness, like the world that made it, the anti-hero sitting enthroned on a mountain. The world, like this one, is more concerned with saving the planet and its animals over preserving human life and its soul forever—into infinity. Ironically, the soul is what lives into infinity, and this world is unconcerned.

Proclaiming oneself a hero does not make one righteous. In today's media, there are super humans, aliens, meta humans, etc., that take up the mantle of hero-ship when they are not truly worthy or called. In literature of old, much of the perception of a hero was based on Jesus, the Messiah who saves, but now, media persecutes the true hero and distances itself from Him. The world sees God as callous, uncaring, and distantly removed, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Jesus gave Himself for us and stands ready to come for those who accept the gift of salvation He offers. He is ever interceding for us at the right hand of God the Father.

Maybe this comes across as judgmental, harsh religion, but “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith” (NASB, Rom. 1:16-17). I cannot help but view everything through a spiritual lense. This is my world, and though you may disagree with my reality, I would be remiss not to share the truth. Love does not withhold truth, and I try to do it kindly.

This world I call my home craves heroes, and who am I not to share the only one I know, Jesus?