Jesus and Shrek
It would be easy to think of "Prince Charming" as the hero and Shrek, the ogre, as...well...the ogre! But in the marvellous animated movieShrek 2 while "Prince Charming" has the looks, the physique and the speech of a palace person, he’s vain, self-centred and greedy for what’s not his. Cut off from the husband she loves and longs for Princess Fiona is surrounded by dark powers and scheming authorities and while someone else sings the words only Fiona feels the real need for a hero.
And the hero that comes riding on a "fiery steed" is Shrek, the compassionate, honourable, loyal and courageous ogre, the one whose ugliness and political incorrectness made him the disgust of the ruling powers and the laughing stock of the populace. Fiona’s heart, if not her mouth, is pounding out the confession and longing in the words and music of Jim Steinman and Dean Pitchford’s Holding Out for a Hero.[Bonnie Tyler’s throbbing version of the song is so much better than the one in the movie and given the right context should be listened to at least once a month.]
Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where’s the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need.
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life
And so it was that all those that mourned over their sins and the sins of the human family realised that they needed a hero. And the hero came in Jesus Christ of whom it was said "he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." (Isaiah 53:2-3) His political incorrectness was known everywhere and his most determined foes were those that had the power.
No, it wasn’t from the palaces or corridors of power that the hero came for he was a root out of dry ground (Isaiah 53:2). And it wasn’t a fiery steed he rode into Jerusalem that fateful day; it was a donkey (Matthew 21:1-11).
"Where’s your Messiah?" some sceptic was sure to ask.
"That’s him there. The one riding the donkey with his sandals dragging in the dirt."
"That? That’s the hero? Ten to one no one will ever follow him!"
Hmmm.
It isn’t always the case because it can’t always be the case—we’re just not up to it. But once in a great while the sense of Christ’s presence by his Spirit becomes so real to believers that the hair rises on their necks. The faith that he is always watching makes the heart beat with excitement and the "commentary" of Steinman and Pitchford now and then becomes a personal and an immediate inner experience.
Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I would swear that there’s someone somewhere
Watching me
Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like the fire in my blood
This is the one the NT ceaselessly talks about. Not about churches and preachers and programmes and successes or dreams of success. About him! And you do understand, don’t you! that the truth of Jesus Christ is not based on the movie Shrek or the marvellous Steinman/Pitchford song. The reverse is true! It’s because of the truth of the one true God we have come to know in and as Jesus Christ that all great books and songs have been written and great movies have been made. Jesus Christ the hero (who is much more than a "hero") is proof of our awful need and he is the knightly cure for all that ails us.
No wonder there are those marvellous and rare moments when believers feel the approach of the Lord God like fire in the grass and a fire in their blood!
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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