As part of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel released the movie "Ant-Man" and it was AWESOME. I personally loved "Ant-Man" because it brought one of Marvel's smallest (literally) and greatest superheroes to life on the big screen. While the man under the mask in the movie may have been Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd), in the comics the original Ant-Man was Hank Pym (portrayed as a retired hero in the movie by Michael Douglas). Recently, I decided that I wanted to look at my two favorite things (Jesus and superheroes) and see if any elements these superhero stories point to the cross and here's what I came up with pertaining to the character Ant-Man.
Redemption is beautiful to everybody
In the movie, one of the subplots is that Scott Lang is an ex-con who is trying to get back into the world and reestablish a relationship with his beloved daughter. This search for redemption that Lang is on throughout the film is something that we relate to deeply. Nobody has everything figured out and we know that sometimes you just need a second chance. We need grace because we can't get everything right on our own. I believe that this story resounds with us so deeply because God has created us that way. Maybe we love these stories of redemption because we're hard wired to be redeemed. Just a thought.
Size does not affect how much you can do for Jesus
The entire concept behind Ant-Man's power is that he is able to shrink and conversely gain more strength. What if we as believers are (metaphorically) imbued with this same power? While this may sound like I'm reaching for truth here, hear me out. What if Jesus may put you in a "smaller" position in the church in order for you to have a far larger effect that you could ever imagine? Let's take a glance over at 1 Samuel 17. David had no idea that he was going to wind up on the battlefield against the largest man he had ever seen. He thought was going to be delivering bread and cheese to his bigger soldier brothers. He didn't sign up to be the hero, God placed him where He needed him and it seemed like a smaller role at the time. What seemed smaller and more insignificant was actually used by God to do what the entire army of Israel could not at the time. Maybe we're not called to be spiritual giants, maybe we're called to be reliant on God (who's pretty big on His own).
These were just a few thoughts and I hope to crank out a few more articles like this in the future. Next time you read a comic book or see a superhero movie, see if you can find those threads within the story that point to Jesus. Go therefore and be the biggest (or smallest) hero you can be for this broken world.
