Please note, The Flash is rated TV-14. Previously on Gospel according to Superheroes, Barry was infected with the villain Ramsey Rosso's blood. As Ramsey takes over Barry's body, he tempts Barry in much the same way Jesus was tempted. Fortunately for Barry, the Speed Force was there to comfort him in much the same way as God is present to comfort us in our trials and troubles. Unfortunately, even with the help of the Speed Force, Barry still has trouble holding off Ramsey's infection and not being tempted. However, the Speed Force is not the only one there to help Barry. He also has his friends. While Barry is fighting Ramsey in his mind, his teammates Cisco and Caitlin are working on a way to cure Barry. At what seems to be right at the last moment, Cisco injects Barry with a solution that brings him out of his coma and, seemingly, out of Ramsey's control.
This is a reminder to us of the important role our friends play in our lives of faith. In the service of Baptism, the entire congregation is called on to help support those to be baptized in their lives with Christ Jesus. It is a reminder that we do not walk on this journey alone, and often times we need the help of our friends when we face temptation. God often puts others on our path to help us in times of need or crisis. My hope is that you can be that help to others in their time of need as well, just as Cisco and Caitlin were to Barry.
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Please note, The Flash is rated TV-14. Previously on The Gospel according to Superheroes: Barry helped out his teammate by giving him a blood transfusion. This, unfortunately, allowed the villain Ramsey Rosso to infect Barry and slowly try to take him over. Ramsey tempted Barry with the possibility of power, similar to the devil's temptation of Jesus. Barry grows sicker and sicker trying to fend off Ramsey in his mind. At this point, the source of Barry's power, the Speed Force, makes an appearance, in the form of Barry's mother. She says: It's okay Barry. I'm here. The same is true for us with God. Even in the midst of our troubles, God is there with us. Our greatest sign of this is the witness of Jesus' own suffering on the cross. Our greatest comfort is in the words of Psalm 23:4: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. The Speed Force says she had trouble finding Barry. This is a sign of Ramsey's infection separating Barry from the Speed Force, similar to how sin divides us from God. However, fortunately for us, not even sin can truly separate us from the love of God. No matter how much sin keeps us away from God, God is always there to help us find our way back. Barry says that his own doubts have been helping Ramsey's infection get stronger. The Speed Force tells him that his journey has always been difficult, yet Barry has always answered the call. "What's changed?" she asks. Barry replies, "I've lived more." Barry doesn't want to give up the life he has built, or his family and friends. Barry tells the Speed Force, "I don't want to die." As we grow older, it can be easy for us to focus too much on things that are other than our life and service to God. One might even say it is easier for us to be drawn in by idols. The key thing for us to do is to continue to build and strengthen our relationship with God. That way age no longer burdens us with false desires but instead leads to a deeper connection with God and thus a richer life filled with purpose. Barry laments, "I know that's selfish. I'm sorry I let you down." The Speed Force comforts him, "No one is immune to fear and doubt, no matter how brave.... The courage to move forward even in the face of overwhelming odds, that's what makes you a hero." Barry's response is "Thank you, I needed to hear that." We all face times of trouble in our own lives. It often takes courage for us to face those difficulties, as the Speed Force tells Barry. Fortunately for us, we have the presence of God to comfort us in the hard times, just as the Speed Force was there to comfort Barry in his trials and temptation. Tune in next time to see how we can rely on others for help in our temptation. Please note, The Flash is rated TV-14 Just before the start of Crisis, Barry and Team Flash go on a mission to stop Ramsey Rosso, a.k.a. Bloodwork, from infecting the entire city with his mind-controlling blood pathogen. Unfortunately one of Barry's teammates, Ralph Dibny, a.k.a., Elongated Man, has his blood drained by Ramsey. Barry provides a blood transfusion to save his life. Unfortunately, that blood transfusion somehow causes a part of Ramsey's blood pathogen to get in Barry's blood and slowly start to take over. Thus, Barry's last temptation begins. Ramsey offers Barry what evil super-villains often offer: power. He claims he can give Barry the strength he needs to actually survive his oncoming doom in Crisis. All Barry has to do is let Ramsey take over. What Barry undergoes thanks to Ramsey is what we all experience in the face of sin. Sin is present in us at the very beginning, and like Ramsey's pathogen, it tries to spread to every part of our being. Sin and evil often give us the same offer: that we will receive what we want only if we give ourselves over to them fully. What we have to remember is that sin is defined as anything that tries to separate us from God. Therefore, it cannot truly offer us what we want, and it certainly cannot offer us what we need. It also helps to remember that Jesus went through temptation as well, as chronicled in Matthew and in Luke. Jesus' temptations by the devil are similar to what we see with Barry as both are offered an easy path to the power they desire. For Jesus, this is through the devil's offer to give Him power over all nations, which would have made His mission much easier to accomplish just as the devil's temptation of Jesus to throw Himself off the Temple and let the angels catch Him would have been definitive proof that Jesus was the Messiah. However, if Jesus had accepted the devil's offers, it would have made Him other than who He was: the Son of God. It is also important to note what the Speed Force tells Barry, that Ramsey is not lying to Barry. The Speed Force states, He manipulates the Truth to spread his disease. In its temptation of Jesus, the devil often uses Scripture to try and convince Jesus to follow it instead of God. Evil and sin often involve manipulating the Truth to convince us they are right and God is wrong. The Speed Force tells Barry that yes, Ramsey can save his body, but not his soul, not those things which give him strength and that those around him love. The gift of Jesus Christ is the recreation of our being so that we can no longer be subject to sin and death, but we can truly live and be the people God truly intended us to be. Sin and evil are the forces that always try to take that hope away from us, but they can do so only if we let them. Stay tuned for more on The Flash: "The Temptation of Barry Allen, Part 1". Please note that the comic discussed is included in a collection rated T+. In Black Panther (vol. 3) #25, T'Challa and Everett Ross run into a bit of an impasse. Throughout Christopher Priest's run, Ross keeps getting into more and more difficult situations, some of which are the result of responsibilities T'Challa has given him. To make a long story short, many things happen that leave Ross wondering, why does T'Challa consider him a friend. As tensions heat up, T'Challa tells him why. Ross' former boss (and girlfriend), Nikki Adams, actually dated T'Challa many years ago when both were in college. Thanks to cultural differences and T'Challa's kingly responsibilities, they went their separate ways. But T'Challa continued to trust her and her judgment.
This post covers a crossover 3-part series between The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl, all of which are rated TV-14. At the end of 2018's Elseworlds crossover for the Arrowverse, to make a long story short, Barry (The Flash) and Kara (Supergirl) are ready to use their superpowers to foil the bad guys' plans and sacrifice themselves to save the world from a crazy reality-altering scheme. Behind the reality-altering shenanigans is the Monitor, a nigh-omnipotent being who is looking for a world in the multiverse with heroes that can stand up to the coming Crisis. Oliver Queen, a.k.a. Green Arrow, in order to try and save Kara and Barry, confronts the Monitor. He tells the Monitor what he really thinks is going on as they are tested for Crisis: I don’t think you’re testing if we’re strong enough. I think you’re testing if we’re good enough.... Oliver is recognizing the truth we must all face: that we are sinful. But he points to an example, a better example that others will follow. That example is the self-sacrificing love of Kara and Barry as they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the world. That self-sacrificing love is the same love Jesus shows us. Jesus died for the world in order to save us all from our sins. Would that we could all be like Barry and Kara, not because showing this kind of love would make us more like superheroes but because it would make us more like Jesus. Spoiler alert: it all ends up okay. Kara and Barry make it out alive thanks to the Monitor helping Oliver find a way. At the end of the episode, Barry asks Oliver what he did to make it all okay. Oliver replies: You and Kara changed your destinies, Barry, by being the heroes that you always have been. While that is not true for us as humans, it is true for Jesus. By loving us, Jesus changed all of our destinies by leading us away from death into live. Barry tries to comfort Oliver by telling him that he is a good man too. Oliver, wisely, makes the remark: I’m not as good as you think I am, but because of you, I’ll get there some day. The same is true for us. While we are all sinful in this world, Jesus' redemptive work helps make us a little bit better, until one day we will be truly good in the Resurrected Life. We will only get to where we should be, and where we all really want to be, with the help of our Lord Jesus. Please note, The Flash is rated TV-14. Click here to view the clip discussed in this post or Find it on the YouTube channel for this website The beginning of the Season 6 of The Flash begins with a plot-thread laid out in the previous season: Crisis is coming. At this particular point in the season, we don't know exactly what it will be (except it will look like DC Comic's Crisis on Infinite Earths), just that Flash won't survive it. As events move closer and closer to Crisis, Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash, decides to tell the rest of his team that Crisis is coming, that it cannot be stopped, and that Barry will not make it through the event. One of the members of the team who takes the news particularly hard is Barry's father-in-law, Joe West. After a mission in Season 6 Episode 4, the two of them start to talk about what is going to happen. Joe gets upset and states, "This is what you get for saving the world over and over again? How is that right?" Barry responds wisely by saying, "you know it doesn't work like that." But Joe begins to cry saying, "The world owes you. You deserve better than this" to which Barry, again wisely, replies, "No, I don't." Barry then says: I'm grateful for everything that I have, all the blessings in my life. That includes his family, friends, and even being able to be The Flash, a superhero. Barry continues by telling Joe that he is what Barry is most grateful for, especially for the strength Joe gave Barry to be able to be "a good person", the very thing that led Barry to be able to be The Flash in the first place. Everything that Barry says here is important, and it has great bearing on how we as people of faith see the world. Barry is right to say that just because he has done good, doesn't mean good things will always happen to him. That is one of the realities of living in this world. We certainly don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but we certainly live with the best of all possible Gods, and God often takes the bad that happens to us and uses it for good. This is precisely what Joseph tells his brothers in Genesis after they sell him into slavery in Egypt. Even though his brothers intended to do him harm, God used Joseph's time in Egypt to save not only the Egyptian people from famine, but Joseph's own family as well. Barry is also right to say that he doesn't deserve any better than his future fate in Crisis, and not just because of all the times he has messed up reality through his time traveling adventures, as long-time viewers of the show will remember. The reality of this world is that none of us deserve anything. We all sin, and we all mess up sometimes, so none of us can say that we are truly righteous. The wonder of our faith is that God loves us anyways. Barry's reaction is not one of despair, but of hope. Most of all, it is one of gratitude for the time he has been given. We should all view life as a gift, a grace even. It is not a gift we deserve or have earned, but it is a gift we are called to do the best we can with. That is all we can ask, and thankfully for Barry, mistakes and all, he has been able to live the life of a hero in service to protecting others. Would that we could all live that kind of life in service to others in the name of the Lord. Would too that we, like Barry, have someone in our lives that can inspire us to be more fully God's. If you don't have such a person in your life, I hope you can be that person for others you may meet. At the end of Barry's speech, Joe tells him, "I'm not ready for this." Barry replies by saying, It's alright. It's okay. I'm never going to leave you, even when I'm gone. This expresses the reality of the hope we have in the Resurrection. Death is never really the end for us as Christians, so even when we are gone from this world, it doesn't mean we are gone completely. Our hope in the Resurrection is not only that we will survive death in this world, but that we will be reunited with all the great communion of saints together in the Resurrected Life. Please note that Supergirl is rated TV-14. One of the most wholesome and uplifting superhero shows out there right now is Supergirl, and I want to share why that is with one of my favorite episodes: Season 1 Episode 7, "Human for a Day". In that episode, Kara, a.k.a. Supergirl, is temporarily left without her powers. She tries to do what she can to help others in her depowered state, but finds herself getting discouraged. Jimmy Olsen sits down and talks with her and reminds her that no hero can save everyone, but that "a real hero never stops trying." After they talk, Kara sees a group of people across the street looting a convenient store. One, even, has a gun. Jimmy tries to talk her out of doing anything because she's no longer bullet-proof. Kara says, "they don't know that." What Kara does is simply talk to the armed man and appeal to his humanity. She tells him she knows he is scared, but: This is not you. I believe we are better than this. We choose who we want to be, and I know you're going to choose to be a better man. What Kara says in her role as Supergirl works. Without any violence or bloodshed, the armed man hands over his gun to Supergirl. Kara didn't need her superpowers to make that happen. All she needed to do was to just use the power of her words.
Like Kara, we are called to help each other to live better lives for God, our neighbor, and the world. Sometimes we do that by reminding each other that there is a better way beyond sin and fear. We don't need superpowers in order to help others in order to call one another to a better way of life. All we need is the power of who we are in Christ Jesus. We don't ever need to use our fists to do that. We just need to use the power of the Word. |
Please note, there maybe Spoilers in the Posts below!
The Rev. Trey KennedyHere is my take on how Superheroes and other characters can help us know God better. Categories
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