Take MegaMind, for example. He's evil. He's a genius. And he's blue. I already don't like him. But as I watch his story unfold, I can't help but be drawn to him. By the end, I'm on whitepagedotcom looking for his address so I can send a nice "thank you" note. The same with Hiccup and Flint Lockwood and Gru and Shrek. They start as goofy, awkward, unpopular, sometimes unlikable characters, but by the time I go through a crisis with them and their true colors are revealed, we're best friends - strictly, non weirdo, "I'm a Dad who only watches these movies 'cause my kids do" best friends.
Why are these stories so attractive? Why are these characters so endearing? Its basic human nature and has been this way since God pulled a shepherd named Moses out of the desert and asked him to save a nation, since Achilles, since Joan of Arc, since Kal-el/Clark Kent, since Peter Parker, since a baby in a manger grew up and saved us all. We want to believe an ordinary person can be a part of something extraordinary. Why? Because we are all ordinary at best.
We long for an identity that transcends what we see in the mirror. So we jockey and climb and maneuver and manipulate to MacGyver our way into more success, more popularity, more internal security. We day dream and imagine and pine for a life we think we want but find always just out of reach. We watch movies about characters who accomplish these day dreams, who find the life they wanted; and we love them because they start out like us; and we hate them because they end up where we wish we were but will never be.
What if there is available to us an identity that fulfills all our hopes and dreams? What if there is a "me" somewhere who does what I wish I could do and ends up at my most idyllic destination?
What price would I pay to own that identity? Money? All I have. Position? The highest. Life itself? Maybe.
A man once wrote, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me."
This sound awfully amazing. Awful and Amazing. Crucified? Not my preferred way to go. But "Christ in me"? Now there's an attractive proposition.
If we're talking about the Christ who was a man, like me, but was always good, always humble, always holy, always at peace and full of joy - if that's the Christ who can live in me, I think I want in.
Death first. I have to first give up the identity that is not really my true self anyway in order to receive this new identity wrapped up in the nature and character of Christ. Fair trade? Absolutely.Easy to do? its a struggle every day. Some days I fail altogether. But in those moments when the old me is truly dead and the new me that is Jesus Christ in me is fully alive, those are the moments when no storybook character can hold a candle to the life I live. It is toward those moments that I aim the arrow of my heart and mind every day. Sometimes my aim is bad. But when its good, I win. And if you happen to be around me that day, you win too. We all win. Eat your heart out MegaMind.
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