Superman, Batman, Spider-man. However you want to slice it, we need heroes in our lives. The great thing about God is that He has placed a desire in our hearts for something that He has provided.
That is called a Messiah.
There are those who are atheists who believe they do not need a Messiah. There are those who are Jewish who believe the Messiah has not come. There are those who have a different idea of what a Messiah is.
The truth is we are all looking for the Deus ex Machina to swoop in for us at the last moment and save us from ourselves: from the consequences, from the responsibility. We are looking for a Messiah whether we think we are or not.
Now this in its immature form manifests itself in children who would love for mommy and daddy to come and make everything all right. Don’t let the consequences take their full effect! We as parents must make the judgment whether to let the consequences happen so that a lesson can be learned or to save the child so that greater damage is not done. This balancing act is done with some success or failure by all parents.
My wife and I need a financial messiah. We are the reason the economy is a mess. Well, not us personally, but we contributed to it. We bought a house at the wrong time, using a loan that would be considered “sub-prime”, ramped up our credit card debt, and we would love to see a Deus ex Machina come down at any moment. We are probably like any person who is in that fix. I think it is natural.
Our sin dictates that we need a Messiah as well. We know that we have failed in a number of areas, with the primary one being our ability to do what is right at any given moment. We let our own personal struggles get in the way of relationships. We do little things on the sly thinking that we can get away with them. We damage people because we feel that they have done us wrong. Our desire for self-preservation leads us to tell lies.
The consequences of doing the wrong thing, of going against our Creator, are far bigger than a loan going “adjustable” at the worst possible moment. The consequences of sin are far bigger than a simple financial crunch. No, “the wages of sin is death.”
Ouch.
Deus please?
What do we do if we know that we have done wrong and yet we do not believe in God? Do we contribute vast sums of money to social justice causes, hoping at the end of the day that our “rap sheet” will have more good than bad on it?
Do we spend countless hours beating ourselves up with false guilt in order to convince ourselves we are bad so that our punishment of ourselves is worse than the punishment we really deserve?
Do we decide we should be punishing other people so they will have to pay the penalty we cannot or will not pay? Maybe we think we deserve the reward, that we have been good and we need to penalize those who seem to thrive on misfortune in markets and banking systems that are corrupt.
It is almost as if we want those superheroes to be real.
When I look at the presidential race, I find it interesting that the terms that are usually reserved for Jesus, my Savior, are being used for one particular candidate as if he can walk on water.
Do we really think Senator Obama can be our Deus? Do we really think he can do all of the things Christ has promised us? Feed all the poor, give dignity to the downtrodden, bring the rich and the corrupt to their knees? Make the last first and the first last?
As a Christian, as a Catholic, I know in the end, no matter what happens financially, with man-made institutions such as the government, with all of these structures that we have placed in our lives, that I am responsible for my soul and its state before God. I am responsible to do what I can to lead my family and others to God.
I need to live a life of hope and faith by practicing charity freely, not forcedly.
Senator Obama, I do not need you to “redistribute” the wealth to save me from my bad financial decisions. I can work, I am industrious. I can provide for my family what we need. Shelter, food, clothing. I do not need you to give me hope. I do not need you to place a false human institution in place of my God. I also do not need you to tell me that an unplanned pregnancy is a “punishment” that can be cured by more government money for abortion.
Senator Obama, I have a Messiah.
The job has been filled.
I pray that our Nation realizes that our real hope comes from something bigger than a man, a government, an institution.
Real hope can only come from a real Messiah.
