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    What Makes a Hero? Youth Study Book: The Death-Defying Ministry of Jesus
    What Makes a Hero? Youth Study Book: The Death-Defying Ministry of Jesus
    What Makes a Hero? Youth Study Book: The Death-Defying Ministry of Jesus
    Ebook81 pages54 minutes

    What Makes a Hero? Youth Study Book: The Death-Defying Ministry of Jesus

    By Matt Rawle

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    About this ebook

    What Makes a Hero? offers us an image of what it looks like to be victorious over trials and temptations. Looking at pop culture heroes and others through the lens of faith, Matt Rawle shows how Jesus turned the concept of hero on its head. In keeping with his theme “Pop in Culture,” the book examines how good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and overcoming adversity are fundamental to how Christians understand salvation. Heroes help us discern the good, fight for what’s right, define identity, execute justice, spark revolution, and save lives.


    Rawle enters the Gospel story to tell quite a different victory story—one obtained through humility, obedience to the cross, and an empty tomb. How does Jesus redefine what it means to be a hero?


    This Youth Study Book takes the ideas presented in Matt Rawle’s book and interprets them for young people grades 6-12.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateDec 19, 2017
    ISBN9781501848049
    What Makes a Hero? Youth Study Book: The Death-Defying Ministry of Jesus
    Author

    Matt Rawle

    Matt Rawle is Lead Pastor at Asbury United Methodist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana. Matt is an international speaker who loves to tell an old story in a new way, especially at the intersection of pop culture and the church. He is the author of Jesus Revealed: The I Am Statements in the Gospel of John as well as The Pop in Culture Series, which includes The Heart that Grew Three Sizes, The Faith of a Mockingbird, Hollywood Jesus, The Salvation of Doctor Who, The Redemption of Scrooge, What Makes a Hero?, and The Gift of the Nutcracker.

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      Book preview

      What Makes a Hero? Youth Study Book - Matt Rawle

      Session One

      JESUS IS NOT MY HERO!

      Scripture Focus: Philippians 2:1-11

      Jesus: The Heroic Non-Hero

      You read that right. Jesus may be a hero to some people, but not to me. Do I think Jesus is, in many ways, heroic? Absolutely.

      •Jesus had to be brave to speak God’s message as plainly and faithfully as he did, even though many people didn’t want to hear it.

      •Jesus cared about other people the way heroes do. He felt compassion when he saw those who suffered, and his compassion moved him to reach out to people on society’s margins when others wouldn’t.

      •And Jesus’ miracles might even seem to earn him superheroic status. His own followers wondered, after watching him stop a terrifying storm, What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? (Matthew 8:27).

      But if we look at Jesus’ life and teachings and see primarily a hero, then we need to take another look.

      What Do Batman and Jesus Have in Common?

      Jesus’ life does look like the Hero’s Journey.

      Described and made widely familiar by mythology scholar Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey is a story pattern found around the world and throughout human history.¹

      It’s broken down in lots of ways, but let’s get a feel for a slimmed-down, seven-stage version of it by thinking about one of pop culture’s most enduring superheroes, Batman.

      •Life in the Ordinary World—The world of fantastic wealth and social status in which young Bruce Wayne lived isn’t one most of us would consider ordinary, but it was to him. That’s the point: Heroes can’t be born in the world they already know.

      •The Call to Adventure—A criminal shoots and kills Bruce’s parents in a dark Gotham City alley, ripping him out of the world Bruce knew. Bruce responds by vowing to spend his life warring on all criminals.²

      •Crossing the Threshold—Bruce leaves his old world to enter a new one, training as an athlete, scientist, and detective. In some versions of his story, this training means crossing literal thresholds. In the movie Batman Begins (2005), for example, Bruce travels to an isolated Asian mountaintop to study under mystic martial arts master Ra’s al Ghul.

      •Tests, Allies, and Enemies—Comics and movies chronicle different first adventures for Batman, but all affirm a hero’s need to prove himself or herself. Sometimes alone, and sometimes with allies like Robin, Batgirl, and Commissioner Gordon, Batman overcomes tests posed by such unforgettable enemies as the Joker, the Penguin, and Catwoman.

      •The Descent into Darkness—Sometimes a descent into a cave symbolizes the hero-to-be’s darkest, most desperate hour. In both director Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight film trilogy and Batman v Superman (2016), young Bruce’s literal fall into what will become Batman’s Batcave helps him discover his new, heroic identity. He will harness his childhood fear of bats to strike fear into criminals.

      •Death and Resurrection—In The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Batman’s foe, Bane, thinks he has destroyed the Caped Crusader. He breaks Batman’s back and imprisons him in a remote underground cavern. But dead and buried Batman manages to ascend from the underworld in time to save Gotham City.

      •The Return with the Reward—After his training, Bruce returns to Gotham with a new identity. Bruce Wayne is Batman’s real mask, one that frees him to protect his community and pursue justice.

      Batman’s story doesn’t match the Hero’s Journey beat for beat, but the pattern isn’t supposed to be a storytelling paint-by-numbers (though it’s often used that way). It’s a summary of the dynamics and themes found, again and again, in the stories we human beings tell about those we call heroes.

      What Batman’s story does help us see clearly is that, at its heart, the Hero’s Journey is a story about transformation. At the end of their physical or figurative journeys, heroes are not the same as when they started. What they experience and do on the journey changes them at a deep level and forever. And because the heroes have changed, they are able to make change happen around them.

      On its surface, the story of Jesus’ life looks like the Hero’s Journey.

      In Philippians 2:6-11, the apostle Paul is likely quoting a hymn familiar to early Christians. Notice how it traces Jesus’ journey along a path that could be called heroic:

      •He begins in his ordinary world of heavenly existence with God, an equality he could have used for only his own good (verse 6)

      •He chooses instead to be obedient (verse 8) to God’s will, God’s call, leaving

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