There is a really compelling scene in the movie “Superman Returns” that really impacts me every time I watch it (you can find it on YouTube). Superman takes Lois Lane on a magical ride high up above the city of Metropolis not long after she had written a column in The Daily Planet called, Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman. As they float together among the clouds, Superman says to Lois, “Listen, what do you hear?” They were so high above the city that the only sound Lois could hear was a gentle wind blowing. “Nothing,” she said. “I hear everything,” Superman says.
The very next scene finds Superman floating high up above the stratosphere of the earth just on the edge of space. His eyes are closed… and fading in, the audience is allowed to slowly hear what Superman hears. A baby crying… people shouting in anger… people crying out in pain… gunshots… fire alarms ringing… car crashes… people calling for help. Suddenly, his eyes snap open, and Superman breaks the sound barrier as he rockets to earth to save people in desperate trouble. Ok, to be completely transparent here… that scene makes me tear up every time I see it. I know… I know… I’m a softy.
This past week I have been pondering and praying for the folks who are dealing with Hurricane Milton just weeks after Hurricane Helene. Many lives have been lost, homes destroyed and livelihoods ruined. Nobody likes to see people suffering. People are suffering through war in Ukraine. People are dying in the middle east as Israel stands against terrorists and countries who hate them. Extremists in Africa are committing genocide of their own people simply because they have a different religious view. Our world is so, so, so, broken.
So, I ponder… What does God hear? He hears everything, right? The howling winds of hurricanes and tornados, the cries of people who have lost everything, the gunshots in Ukraine, the missiles exploding in Israel — He. Hears. Everything. The brokenness of our world is not missed by God.
I will not pretend to understand why God didn’t tell Helene and Milton to “Be Still” and stop the destruction. I do not know why God doesn’t intervene and stop the war in Ukraine. I do not know why God doesn’t rescue Israel from her enemies like he did so often before from Egypt and the Philistines. I do not understand why God would allow his people to be martyred in Africa. But I do know this…
When it came time for God’s redemptive plan to be initiated, Jesus charged to the rescue! For millennia he had heard the cries of those who suffered under the bondage of death. He had listened to the brokenness caused by sin — and he embraced the cross so that he could take possession of the keys to Death and Hades — locking them, so that those who declare their faith in Him would be saved.
So many pople today believe that the world doesn’t need Jesus because they can’t see past the brokenness of the world to understand the incredible lengths that God went to— so that people could have eternal life. Ok, full disclosure here… THAT is what I am thinking about when I watch that scene of Superman rocketing to earth to save people… I am thinking of Jesus — it happens every time I see that scene. How he clawed his way up the side of Calvary. How he laid on the cross as the nails were driven home. How he willingly bore the sins of Humanity. IT. IS. FINISHED! He came to rescue in a way that even Superman could not have imitated.
You know, Lois had it wrong. The world in the movie did need Superman. And our world needs Jesus…. Oh… how our world needs Jesus…
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