Superman

Back in 1983, there was an animated short called 'charade' that won the academy award for best animated short.  I'll submit a link here, because it's worth a peek, though caution, there is some extremely light nudity at the end (a mooning).  

Anyhow, the conceit of the production is that there is one person acting who is extremely elaborate, and nobody can get it, and there's another person who comes out and does basically a pose, and everyone gets it.  The best bit is when the first guy acts out Superman by doing things like changing in a phone booth, being faster than a bullet, lifting a truck, flying, all that stuff, and nobody gets it. The second guy comes out and just takes of his glasses, and someone guesses 'Superman.' 

It's a funny gag, made all the funnier because of the reality of the disguise that Superman himself wears.  I know it's a tired observation now, but how crazy is it that nobody recognizes Superman as Clark Kent without the glasses?  Even as superhero disguises go, it's a feeble one.  And people in the comics always seem to react the same way, by saying 'Clark, you missed it!  Superman was just here!' 

I bring this up because I want you to think about why it is that Superman would need a secret identity in the first place.  That is, Batman is pretty vulnerable when he's wearing a business suit, but Superman? Even if you walk up to Clark Kent in broad daylight and pull a gun on him, he'll only be as damaged as Superman would be because he is Superman. Just in disguise.  Superman may be bulletproof, though, he may be completely immune to poison, stabbings, lynchings, all that, but do you know who isn't immune to any of that? Lois Lane.  Ma Kent.  Jimmy Olsen.  Perry White.  All these people are regular people, and if Superman is found out to have been Clark Kent at any point in his life, all those lives become forefeit.  

So, Superman has a secret identity not for his benefit, but for the benefit of those around him . And unlike most heroes, he is wearing a disguise when he is dressed as Clark Kent. When he's dressed as Superman, that's when he is actually without disguise.  Bruce Wayne puts on a disguise to become Batman, Barry Allen puts on a disguise to become the Flash, and Hal Jordan puts on a disguise to become the Green Lantern.  Superman, though, puts on a disguise to become Clark Kent.  His natural state is Superman.

This is important for Transfiguration Sunday.  I brought this guy up on Sunday as a visible reminder of secret identities, especially Superman.  For on the mount of Transfiguration, the disciples got to see the Lord Jesus without disguise.  For most of the time on earth, he was visible as a human being like any other.  But as with Superman, when Jesus is in disguise, he puts something on, in this case, a mortal nature.  In his purity, without disguise, he is manifest in his glory.  The mild-mannered carpenter is like the mild mannered reporter - that's the disguise.  And why does Christ need a disguise?  Well, like with Superman, it's for us.

The voice from the cloud says something very important to the disciples: "this is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to him.'  Yes, listen to him.  That's the hard part.  And you can tell it's the hard part because we tend to want to be like Thomas Jefferson, and to cast the Bible into two separate halves, with two separate gods.  And a lot of people do that, saying to me 'how is it that the God of the Old Testament is mean and vindictive, but the God of the New Testament is nice and mild?'  But that question only makes sense if you don't listen to the words of Christ.  GK Chesterton made a great point, saying that the accusation that the church had taken the simple message of peace and love that Christ gave to the world and despoiled it with him being vindictive is false.  In fact, it is the opposite.  The Christ of the Gospels is firm, hard as nails and in many cases furious.  There are no statues to my knowledge of him denouncing the sinful, or glaring in wrath at the 'brood of vipers.'  There are no statues or carvings of the Lord of Life discussing Gehenna, or promising wailing and gnashing of teeth.  But all those thing are in the scriptures, if you'll listen.  

If you follow through with the recommendation that the voice from the cloud gives, then you'll see that the flesh on Christ is as convincing a disguise as the glasses on Clark Kent. They shouldn't fool anyone, but they do.  If you listen to the words of Christ, it becomes clear that he doesn't just sound like God, he is God.  Not only is it not a different God in the New Testament, the God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old, and it is Jesus Christ himself. Once you work that out, then the rest of the New Testament begins to make sense, as a fulfillment of the Old.  You see Christ as the Lord of the Old Testament stepping into the world to drag it out of the sinfulness that it had gotten itself into.  And the words of the cloud are true and good, because anyone who truly listens to the words that Christ says will come away with the impression that this is a fulfillment of everything the scriptures had ever spoken of - from the fall of humanity until the arrival of the savior himself.