Τετέλεσται

"When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, 'Τετέλεσται,' and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:30.

Jesus > Superman

I know that the above statement may be cliché, overdone, or even extremely cheesy. But, "Jesus > Superman" is something that needs to be out there. Today, I tried to take the easy way out. I googled "superhero devotion" to outsource the devo of the week. But, I came up short. They had plenty of thoughts concerning releasing the superhero within you. But, is it really about us? I've always felt the greatest honor in pointing ahead to something or someone that is greater than myself. As I continued to scan the pages I found "Jesus Christ: Super Hero" and "Jesus is the ultimate superhero." They seemed to miss the point, that Jesus is really better than any superhero.

Finally, I stumbled upon this paragraph:

"The Lord is the strength of our lives. We see the movies with all these superheroes in them. Well, there is no superhero like Jesus. He died for me and then conquered the greatest villain that there is, satan, and defeated him and made a show of him publicly. That is a true superhero. That is a conqueror! Our Jesus did not just win the battle, He won the battle and then gave us the victory. That is why we do not have to fear." -- Pastor Tom

Pastor Tom finally made the point that my soul longed to hear. "There is no superhero like Jesus."

All of our ideas of a true hero, every single one, are just failed attempts at forming the perfect man. We get a glimpse. But, it's always off. Maybe that's because the perfect man has already existed. How can we even attempt to recreate someone who already is ("I am")? The good news is, we don't have to.

C.S. Lewis said something like, "With something so true as the Gospel, there are bound to be ripples of smaller truths." They are things that come close to the complete picture of the Gospel, but fall to the side (on the path).

This happens in our own Logic and Reason. We can reason up to a point who God could be (Timaeus). But, that is still nothing compared to who God reveals himself as being (Three and One, Alpha and Omega, in the Scripture). Other religions have taken place around the world, everything from governmental order (politics and Confucius) to spiritual mysticism (Hinduism, spirituality, and the list goes on). But, none of them are as complete as the message of the Gospel. They reach to a point of who we need to be or what we need to do to be saved. But, they never finish. No one ever steps up and says, I can do this for you. In everything from judicial order to soul-searching, we fall short because we cannot make it complete. We cannot follow laws perfectly nor ever find out the realities of the spiritual world without help.

This is where we need Christ. Not only does he reveal to us who He is, who God is. He also takes it upon himself to make us complete. He takes the satire of heroes and demi-gods and finishes the story. He says that our ideas of who he should be are close. But, they remain pale in comparison to the glory of who he actually is.

And, in his final, humble yet powerful words of the cross, he says it all. "Τετέλεσται" - "It is finished." "It is completed." "It is perfected." This alone comes through Him. He won. And, he rose again to prove it.