Last month, while volunteering as the Avengers for the Route 66 Mother Road Festival in Springfield, we learned of a little boy named Tyler. Radiation treatments keep Tyler’s lymphoma at bay, but also kept him from the festival that day. We told Tyler’s mom about Costumers for Christ and she told us that Tyler would absolutely love a visit from his favorite superhero—Spider-man!
Although I made several Spiderman costumes as commissioned works, this was the first time I cosplayed as Spider-man myself. Saint John’s Children’s Hospital was colorful and inviting. Both patients and staff smiled brightly as Spidey walked the halls and rode the elevator to the fifth floor. A somewhat startled security guard pointed us to Tyler’s room. But when I poked my head through his door, I was surprised by what I saw. I expected a frail little boy too weak to move. But as soon as Tyler saw Spider-man he excitedly jumped out of bed and ran over to meet me, energetically bounding around the room. He spewed forth enough Spider-man knowledge to impress any fan. As we talked, I learned that Tyler is in “maintenance” now, which means he still has radiation treatments on a regular basis, but has been cancer-free for several months! Praise God!
Tyler was a bright little boy and it didn’t take him long to notice I wasn’t hanging upside down from the ceiling or sticking to the walls. “You’re not the real Spider-man, are you?”
I smiled and confessed, “You’re right Tyler, I’m not really Spider-man. That’s because superheroes like Superman, Batman and Spider-man are just pretend. But there is one real Superhero who came to earth a long time ago with special powers and abilities. He even gave his life to save the world.” Then I asked, “Would you like to read a comic book about that hero?” Tyler nodded expectantly as I handed him a copy of The Amazing Gospel. Surprisingly, he wasn’t the least bit disappointed to find out I wasn’t the real Spider-man. Instead he said that he loved my costume, asked to try on my mask, and told me all about his own Spidey costume. Before saying good-bye, I reminded Tyler of the sagely advice Uncle Ben once gave to Peter Parker: “With great power, comes great responsibility!”
Those words are the heartbeat of Spider-man comics, cartoons, and cinema.
For those unfamiliar, the spectacular Spider-man started off as puny Peter Parker—a brainy and bookish teenager at Mid-Town High in New York. But one day, while attending a science exhibit, Peter is bit by a radioactive spider and imbued with the proportionate strength and agility of an arachnid. Suddenly Peter can scale walls and ceilings and he develops a precognitive “spider-sense” that warns him of impending danger.
Peter first uses his newfound powers selfishly—to earn money and fame. In a very telling moment, Peter witnesses a robbery, but rather than help catch the crook, Peter just looks the other way—a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. That night, Peter finds his Uncle Ben dead—shot on the street by the very same thief that he allowed to escape.
This is the defining moment in Spider-man’s story. In his grief Peter finally realizes what his surrogate father, Uncle Ben, had been trying so hard to teach him: with great power comes great responsibility! This maxim has become the moral compass that guides Spider-man’s heroic adventures.
Long before Stan Lee scripted the story of Spider-man, though, the Bible said something very similar: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to help them” (Proverbs 3:27 NIV). The question you might ask is: “Who deserves it?” Jesus once told a story to answer that very question. It’s a timeless tale about a man, much like Uncle Ben, walking down a dangerous road in a perilous part of town. Here’s how Jesus tells it:
“As a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, some robbers attacked him. They tore off his clothes, beat him, and left him lying there, almost dead. It happened that a Jewish priest was going down that road. When he saw the man, he walked by on the other side. Next, a Levite came there, and after he went over and looked at the man, he walked by on the other side of the road. Then a Samaritan traveling down the road came to where the hurt man was. When he saw the man, he felt very sorry for him. The Samaritan went to him, poured olive oil and wine on his wounds, and bandaged them. Then he put the hurt man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he cared for him. The next day, the Samaritan brought out two coins, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of this man. If you spend more money on him, I will pay it back to you when I come again.’” (Luke 10:30-35 NCV)
When we examine this story—much like the story of Spider-man—we find several people all traveling the same road but with very different attitudes in their hearts. As Jesus paints this vivid word-picture three (let’s call them) “heart-conditions” come clearly off the page. The first is a corrupt heart.
A CORRUPT HEART
The first people this innocent traveler encounters during his seventeen mile trek were his attackers. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notoriously treacherous. It was a winding path through bleak and barren terrain that provided ample hiding places for thieves and bandits. Just like Uncle Ben’s killer, the attackers in Jesus’ tale are nameless. They simply appeared, stripped him of his clothes, gave him the beating of his life, and then left him for dead. Sadly, stories such as these aren’t relegated to comic-books or the cannon of Scripture.
The real world is full of villains.
You can hardly turn on the news without seeing their stories. A mother and father leave their special needs child locked in a cage until she dies of starvation. A sixteen-year-old beats an eighty-five-year-old WWII veteran to death because he had nothing better to do. A patient murders his own doctor with a 12-gague shot gun. Gunmen slaughter kindergarteners. Terrorists crash planes. Our world is full of criminals, cowards, and killers.
In one of the darkest corners of Scripture, God gives this bleak assessment of humanity: “There is no one who does anything good; there is not even one. Their throats are like open graves; they use their tongues for telling lies. Their words are like snake poison. Their mouths are full of cursing and hate. They are always ready to kill people. Everywhere they go they cause ruin and misery. They don’t know how to live in peace. They have no fear of God.” (Romans 3:12-18 NCV).
Sadly, this passage isn’t about the Philistines, the Canaanites, or any other enemies of God’s people. It’s describing humanity in general. Ever since Cain killed Abel the hands of evil men have shed innocent blood. The villains in this parable, and the death of Peter’s uncle Ben, are a reminder of just how dark and vile our world can be. The further a person’s heart grows from God, the more corrupt and cruel it becomes. That’s why our world needs heroes who will shine God’s light into the darkness. Of course, not every heart is totally corrupt. Some hearts are simply calloused, which is the next heart we find in this story.
A CALLOUSED HEART
As this innocent victim lies dying on the side of the road he is passed—not once, but twice—by people who could have helped. Looking back at our text, Jesus says, “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31-32 NLT).
Edmund Burke is supposedly said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Evil almost triumphed in this story, because two good men did nothing. Notice that the two men who passed by on the other side were not your average church-goers. These were the religious leaders of Jerusalem, a priest and a temple servant. Neither of these men was violent or abusive, like the robbers, yet when they saw someone in need of help, they did nothing. Their hearts were calloused.
Peter Parker made the same choice when he looked the other way. He could have chosen to help. To get involved. He had the power to do the right thing, but he didn’t think it was his responsibility. Sadly, I think many of us share his guilt.
Our culture has become desensitized to the needs around us. We see commercials about starving children in the Horn of Africa and our first instinct is to change the channel. How many times have you driven through the city and seen a disheveled displaced vagrant standing at the intersection with a cardboard sign in their hands, only to avoid eye contact until the light turns green?
It’s just easier to do nothing. But that is how evil triumphs. John F. Kennedy, aptly quoting Dante’s Inferno, once said, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, during a time of moral crisis, do nothing.”
The traveler’s hopes must have been at their lowest point as he lay there bleeding and struggling to breathe. But there was one more person traveling this barren boulevard. The final heart-condition we see in this story is a compassionate heart.
A COMPASSIONATE HEART
Just as the sun was beginning to set over the horizon, a Samaritan man comes around the bend. If the injured traveler was conscious enough to recognize the Samaritan, it probably wouldn’t have brought him any hope.
Although Jews and Samaritan were separate branches of the same family tree, they had become enemies. In fact, the Bible says elsewhere, “Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans” (John 4:9 NLT). The Jews of Jesus’ day discriminated against and looked down upon the Samaritans. It would have been easy for this Samaritan to turn a blind eye just like Peter. Instead, Jesus says, “when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him” (Luke 10:33 NLT). First, the Samaritan cleaned the wounds and wrapped them with bandages. Furthermore, he lifted the man onto his own donkey and gave him a ride to the nearest Best Western. Finally, going the extra-mile, he paid the innkeeper and promised to cover any additional expenses.
Today, the word Samaritan is synonymous with good deeds and helping others. In fact, the dictionary defines it as “one who is compassionate and helpful to a person in distress.” The volunteer workers at Saint John’s Children’s Hospital, where I visited Tyler, are even called Samaritans. All this is because Jesus made a Samaritan the hero of his story.
Peter learned a painful lesson when he lost his uncle Ben. From that moment on, he understood that with great power comes great responsibility. With that realization, he chose to become a Good Samaritan to the people of New York; or, as Peter often puts it: a “friendly neighborhood Spider-man!”
While Superman reminds us that we have a hero in Jesus, Spider-man reminds us that we can be a hero to those in need. You don’t have to be able to spin webs or stick to walls or have the proportionate strength of a spider to be someone’s hero. All you need is a caring and compassionate heart.
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I hope it doesn’t take a tragic loss for us to follow in Peter Parker’s footsteps. When you see suffering or injustice, please don’t just look the other way. Don’t withhold good from those in need, when it’s in your power to help them. The Bible says, “See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people” (1 Thessalonians 5:5 NLT). Let this command be the moral compass on whatever road you travel and, in so doing, become the hero in someone’s story—the hero God made you to be.