For those that don’t keep up with comics or superheroes
in general, it feels like every hero has to have some sort of tragedy occur
that gives him a reason for wanting to put on the tights and fight villainy
month in and month out. To an extent,
this is a valid statement. It’s not an absolute
necessity to have a defining tragic moment in the life of a superhero, but many
of the most famous hero backstories certainly follow this pattern.
A few examples:
Peter Parker, after being bitten by a radioactive spider
(or genetically altered spider in the Ultimate universe and in the movies)
doesn’t seek to fight crime and right wrongs right off the bat. Instead he uses his newfound powers to seek
fame and fortune until he realizes that his surrogate father, Uncle Ben, died
due to his single, selfish act of letting a villain go free. The tragedy is of his own making and he takes
it very personally. Hand-in-hand with
that tragedy comes the famous line, “With great power comes great
responsibility.”
The infant, Kal-El, is rocketed away from a dying planet
Krypton. Kal-El is adopted by human
parents and is now known to the planet Earth by the names Clark Kent and Superman. The tragedy, the events leading to the
destruction of his home world, is not witnessed or caused by him, but that
tragedy still shapes his every decision as he tries to help his adopted home
world in any way he can.
A young Bruce Wayne witnesses the cold-blooded murder of
his parents and not only decides to use his abilities to fight crime, but he
spends the rest of his young life gaining the abilities necessary to do
so. While other heroes have powers and
then something occurs to guide them in their decisions on how to use their
powers, in Batman’s case his tragedy actually pushed him to gain the very
abilities he uses to fight crime.
(Side note on the topic of Batman: Affleck’s going to be fine. The movie will be great. Please come off the ledge. )
So what’s Martin’s tragedy? He’s got to have a tragedy, right?
Right?
Wrong.
There is a tragedy that has occurred in our hero's life, but you're looking to the wrong guy if you think Martin's the hero. The real hero in this story is God.
The tragedy belongs to YHWH. The love of His life,
humanity, broke His covenant and His heart.
As the Jars Of Clay song goes, “Taught you to walk but then you ran away
from me. That’s not how it’s supposed to
be.” The way I view this is that we caused His tragedy. We put Him in this position. The tragedy is that everything could have
been wonderful and perfect, but we decided not to go there.
And that tragedy determined God’s actions. “For YHWH so loved the world that he gave His
only begotten Son.” God sacrificed
EVERYTHING out of love for us. We caused
the tragedy. We created the
separation. But through all of that, He
never forgot about us. He never let us
go.
Martin’s motivation is this: He loves God because God first loved him. God didn’t have to die for us. He didn’t have to care about us anymore. He could have scrapped us all and started
over if He wanted to. But He chose to
love us. He chose not to let us die. He chose to renew the relationship with His
own blood.
It’s not Martin’s personal tragedy, but God’s. That is the knowledge that drives Martin. My hope and prayer for you today is that it will drive you to get to know Him more as well.
