Heroes, superpowers, and our resurrection bodies

I just started watching the TV mini-series ‘Heroes’. What a show! This show has my complete attention and it’s probably the best show I’ve seen so far. I love the idea of superpowers and a higher meaning to life, something that tells you you’re meant for greater things, that you have a destiny.

The whole idea of superpowers and heroes really interests me as a Christian. I can’t help but wonder about something. I always wonder how artists come up with ideas like these. Why is the idea of a superhero so appealing to us? Or, why did the idea of a superhero even enter our imagination?

To me at least, when I think of a superhero, I always think of a guy or girl in tights with some cool power. But then I think of Jesus. And I’m trying to say this without sounding just stupidly cheesy. I mean, I really think about him, how he healed people, how he ascended (could fly?: there was upward movement) to Heaven, how he walked on water, turned water to wine, rose from the dead, calmed storms, raised other people from the dead.

I always wonder whether the reason for why superheroes appeal to us, or why we even have the idea of superheroes, is because we do live in a Christian universe. And the idea of a superhero is a remnant, a hangover, an aftershock, a shadow, a copy, a reflection (or, whatever!?), of some real, true, divine, supernatural reality or truth about something or someone or some event that is supposed to happen, or is destined to happen, or is promised to us to happen.

I really can’t get that itch to go away. All this superhero stuff is really real, and it’s something - I know it in my gut - that’s going to be real one day, probably in the afterlife sometime, and it’ll manifest itself in ways we never dreamed of.

Of course, all these powers are delegated. I see it like this. Paul thinks Jesus’ resurrected body is the archetype for ours. So, whatever His could do, ours could one day do too! So, for example, when Christ healed a person of blindness, He could manipulate all the little nerve endings to come together in the way that allows sight. This is a miracle over Nature.

Or, when Jesus calmed the storm, wind and water currents were under the control of His will. He did close up and focused what He does everyday far away with every weather pattern.

But then it seems He could fly, walk on water, defy death - He even appeared in a room out of nowhere, almost a sort of teleportation.

There’s a guy in ‘Heros’ who can bend space and time. This is exactly what C.S. Lewis talks about with our resurrection bodies!!! Because Jesus could fly and just teleport in a room, it’s got to be the case that those bodies are going to be related to space and time in a different way than they’re related now!

It just seems like all these powers - superhuman strength, flying, teleportation, space/time bending, healing - are unclear, unfocused, but real, reliable clues (good guesses?) into something that may be very real with regard to us, our future, what we’ll be able to do.

I know it’s probably not edifying to dwell on that, because the first step is obedience to and love for God; after that, it seems the powers are delegated in some mysterious, special way we’ll be able to experience one day.

But the show ‘Heroes’ really brought this home for me. Perhaps every single one of us has some power, different from all the rest - it’s unique to you, and it was delegated to you for a purpose, and the exercising of that power is part of your destiny. And maybe that power is something you’ll need for whatever job or prospect God will entrust you with in Heaven.

And I readily admit all of this could be complete nonsense and rubbish. But I can almost say that this stuff is creatively created for a reason, an imaginative reason, and I almost know it in my bones that something sort of like it is going to be true in the afterlife, or at least after we get our resurrection bodies.