Superman

My husband is Superman today.

Really.

This morning he left the house in his Clark Kent persona. Black glasses, black hair (this was amazing since his hair is the color of pewter), the recognizable Superman logo showing out from the V of his slate gray buttoned shirt. Red tie askew as if his hand had just pulled it sideways in order to allow the transformation.

I stared at him. I peered through to see him in the disguise. He was there.

And I fell in love all over again.

This is Spirit Week at the high school where he teaches Algebra II. And today everyone is supposed to be dressed as a superhero or a villain. And my husband went as Clark Kent. AKA Superman.

As I watched him walk down the sidewalk to his car this morning I began to think.

I wondered how many times the disciples, the crowds and even the religious leaders saw the earthly persona of Jesus and dismissed him? They didn’t recognize that Jesus was the disguise of the marvelous divinity of God. It’s an old clichéd connection. I have heard it before—Clark Kent walking among the citizens of Metropolis. Moving, working and living among them. All the while being Kent, but in reality being someone far more.

I wonder.

I wonder if when Jesus caused the leprosy to dissipate from the leper’s diseased body, did Thomas turn and stare at Jesus—peering through? Did Andrew look closely at Jesus when he defied the religious hatefuls and uncurled the man’s withered hand on the Sabbath? Did Levi/Matthew gaze into the face of Jesus when he stretched to see the widow of Nain’s son? I wonder if John’s head cocked crookedly when Jesus began to read the passage from Isaiah in the synagogue.  Did he ask himself could this really be?

Often the ordinary hides the extraordinary.

Often the Great-Beyond-Us is clothed in the common, the mundane and even the banal—obscured.

Often beauty, as Ann Voskamp suggests, is veiled by the ugly. And if we do not make an effort to look past and through the ugly we fail to see the reality.

Often truth is disguised as a fairy-tale—the reality that cannot be repeated or measured or proved.

Often love comes costumed in the ridiculous and the absurd.

And we miss it.

We miss the truth because we don’t think Superman could ever be Clark Kent.

It’s just too absurd.  

We see only what we want to see. Or what we think we should see. Or what we think others think we should see.

Father, I pray today that you open our eyes. Please don’t allow us to miss you because we think we know how to see you. I pray that you would remove the scales of our cultural bias, our religious bent and earthly bigotry.

Peel them back so that we see with eyes fresh. Lift all these filters so that we might recognize YOU. The light will be so pure and so bright that we will be momentarily blinded, but when the eyes of our heart have adjusted we will see you. We will see you in your glory—though partial it might be. 

Remind us that there is no darkness in you. Remind us that there are no shifting shadows in you. Remind us that our Superman has no weakness. No falterings. No failings.

Amen and amen.