The Real Man of Steel

Jesus has a way of sneaking up on you sometimes.  For instance, in the newest Superman movie, The Man of Steel, Clark Kent must decide if he is willing to surrender himself to General Zod and save humanity from certain annihilation.  But Clark doesn’t trust the villainous General Zod any more than the humans he has hidden from his entire life.  Jonathan Kent, his human father, warned Clark the boy that people were not yet ready to accept someone with his abilities.  Jonathan also taught Clark that his powers would someday change the world and when that time came he would have to decide whether it would be for good or for evil.  So Clark, unsure of what to do and unable to rely on his dad’s advice any more, goes to church and talks to a priest.  As they talk, Clark sits before a stained glass window depicting Jesus wearing something reminiscent of a red cape.  The priest advises Clark to trust his gut, and in the next scene, we see a 33-year-old Superman willingly surrender to the human authorities.  Led in chains he could easily overcome, Superman is presented to General Zod, whose armor and haircut are so suggestive of ancient Roman styles that the viewer no longer wonders whom Superman allegorically represents.

The Man of Steel is a reflection of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.  The scene above reminds us of Jesus’s struggles in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We see several instances in the Gospels of Jesus asking those he helps to refrain from telling others about what he did for them, presumably to keep his fame from spreading.  But in the Garden, he wrestles with the decision to enter Jerusalem and expose his true identity, risking death to save the world.  Ultimately, we learn that Jesus overcomes his fear and willingly surrenders himself to the Jewish authorities, and in turn, Pontius Pilate.  But if Superman does represent Jesus, then what are we to learn about Jesus from The Man of Steel? 

The film explores Clark Kent’s childhood more than any other movie before it.  Through several flashbacks, we see young Clark struggling with his powers.  We are filled with compassion as a terrified Clark realizes he can see beneath the skins of people around him; we cry with the boy as he is brought to his knees from the painfully amplified sounds in his environment; finally, we feel helpless rage for this little boy who, because he knows of the damage his legendary strength can cause, refuses to fight back as his peers mercilessly bully him.  We know these powers will be great assets to the adult Superman, but to a young Clark Kent, they are nothing short of a curse.  Yet, in each of these scenes we see Clark overcome these obstacles by relying on his father’s wisdom, life lessons the adult Clark Kent still follows.  He learns to focus his mind so as not to be overwhelmed by his superhuman hearing and sight; he moves from town to town, so that word of his life saving deeds do not follow him; he chooses to walk away from a fight with a belligerent drunk in a bar; and finally, in surrendering to Zod, he demonstrates the last lesson his father taught him – the willingness to die so that others might live.  Thus, Clark Kent becomes Superman in part because Jonathan Kent was his earthly father.

Have you ever considered how little we know about Joseph, and his role in Jesus’s upbringing?  What could Jonathan Kent teach us about Joseph?  We talk about the importance of Mary, and rightly so, but we forget that Joseph was also chosen to raise Jesus into the man God needed him to be.  Although we know very little about Jesus’s childhood, it is likely that he also struggled with fear as he began to recognize the differences between himself and others.  He, too, had to learn how to control his powers, to forgive, and to find the courage to accept his destiny.  But who taught Jesus this?  The creators of The Man of Steel help us see the role that Joseph played in Jesus’s development through the life of Jonathan Kent.  They, like so many fathers before and after them, were certainly role models for their extraordinary sons.  Jesus became the Jesus we know today due to the role Joseph played in his life.

So who is the real Man of Steel?  It is Jesus, the Son of Man, who chose to defeat the world’s sin, and even death, to save us from ourselves.  Jesus, just like Superman, found that courage from his earthly father’s example.  And that lesson is one every father should remember.