We as a whole are lacking in hope. We run through our lives busy as bees, but instead of working to bring life, we are working at self satisfaction. We see so many people who supposedly have it all, that are killing themselves with drugs, alcohol, and loose living. I have noticed over the past several years that there has been an increase in the media, books and movies about the paranormal and superheroes. My theory is that we lack heroes. I know there are plenty to be found, everyday, normal people to do extraordinary things for the good of others. But they are few and far between, at least from what we can see in the media. We have a need to know that there is someone out there who can fly in and save the world, who can free us from the evil that runs rampant.

I think for some of the same reasons we have seen an increase in the genre of paranormal. Sure some are just plain horror stories, that only frighten and horrify us, and I think those are part of the evil around us, but there are some that I think are a shadow of what we need and hope for as a society. When I read the ‘Twilight’ series, which I did enjoy, I thought about this at length. Edward, the vampire, considers himself a ‘monster’, his whole ‘family’ doesn’t behave like the other vampires, but live by a code of ethics that isn’t normal for their kind. They don’t harm humans and the father figure is a doctor. I think that if we look past the whole love triangle and the shallow parts that young girls adored, we see the need to know that even if we are ‘monsters’ we can be redeemed and loved. We had a huge amount of vampire stories stream into the media after the success of this one story, but they all lacked the background story of fighting against the evil in our own hearts and lives.

Why do I think we so need to hear that there is a superhero out there, or that we can overcome the evil inside of us? Because we have a hero, on the scale of super-super, that died for us so that the evil inside of us is made into something good and right. He swept in, not on a web, or with cape flying, but in a manger, as a man, in our weakness and our frailty, and fully depended on the un-ending love of His Father, to give him the strength to live supernaturally, and to free us from the chains of evil that bound us.

So, you know, I do love superhero movies, and stories like Twilight, to me they are a shadow of what is really happening. They show us that we can’t do it ourselves, that we need someone better than we are to help us and to show us the way. God can do that. He already did.