This holiday season our office usually sponsors two groups or families for holiday hampers. We get a list of what the family members might like for presents. One family has boys and the note was that they would like action figures.
Wow! Action figures! I think of my old GI Joe. They probably think of Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men.
What do X-Men and X-mas have to do with each other?
Well, a lot actually.
X-Men and Jesus were men of action. Talk about superpowers? Jesus outdid them all.
Walk on water (Matthew 14:25)? Check! Still the raging wind and sea (Mark 4:39)? Check! Cast out legions of demons (Mark 5:1-17). Double-check! How about turning water into wine (John 2:1-11), healing a blind man (John 9:1-12), a paralyzed man (Mark 2:1-12), terrible skin diseases (Luke 17:11-19), fatal illnesses (Mark 5:21-43), severe bleeding (Luke 8:43-44), feeding 5,000 people with a small bag of buns and fish (John 6:1-14), reading people's minds (Matthew 9:4), forgiving our sins (Luke 7:48), raising people from the dead (John 11:1-44), coming miraculously into a virgin's womb (Matthew 1:18), dying on a cross for you and me (I John 2:2), and fulfilling 353 prophecies about his life, some written more than 3,000 years ago?
How about saving the world? He came to save us individually from sin and death. He will also come to save our polluted planet and usher in a new heaven and earth with no more evil people, sickness, death, tragedies, tears and crying (Revelation 21).
How about being immune to kryptonite or other deadly foes? Death could not hold him. He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).
So next time you think of action heroes as gifts for a growing child, think about the ultimate action hero. Someone who just did not sit in heaven, twiddle his thumbs, or wring his hands at all the evil in the world.
Think of Jesus Christ, the ultimate saviour of the world whose birth we celebrate, whose life we should emulate, and whose second coming we should anticipate.
