I recently realized that it has been quite some time since I have mentioned my love for comic books in one of my sermons. I’m sure this is something that you all have been quite thankful for, but it is something that I’m going to change this morning. You see, I want to talk a bit about Batman today.
Batman was created as a character in 1939. That means that next year he will be seventy years old. And in the last seventy years he has gone through a number of changes, some of them good some of them bad. My first experience of Batman was reruns of the ‘60s television series that was campy and silly, and as a child I took it very seriously. But later on, in high school, I began to read the comics that told of Batman and discovered a darker, more complex person.
Batman suffered a great tragedy as a child. His parents were killed in a random shooting, in front of his eyes. And Batman is affected by this and decides that he is going to do what he can to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Some have said that Batman is about vengeance, trying to get even with evil. But this is just not true. Vengeance can only get you so far, and Batman has a code that the follows that shows that he isn’t just about vengeance. What Batman is about is justice. He is about justice and self-sacrifice.
But recently, in the comic books that tell the stories of Batman, the authors have lost this. They have decided that Batman dressing up and trying to make the world a better place is not a normal thing, that perhaps Batman is a little deranged. And so, they end up treating him in a more negative way.
But I want to say that justice and self-sacrifice is heroic. Deciding to give up your own happiness so that you can help others is not something that someone who is deranged will necessarily do. Putting the happiness and welfare of those around you, even strangers around you, before your own, is actually something that is worthwhile. We can learn something from Batman when we realize this.
I. Doing what Feels Good
The whole discussion I just had about Batman was there to make a point that I think we sometimes miss. The culture that we live in has changed and headed in a direction that many of us aren’t comfortable with. Now it is easy to point out one issue or topic that seems to prove this point and rail on some specific sin that we see the world around us being permissive of, but I actually believe that the problem is more insidious than just one issue or sin. I believe that there has been a radical shift in our values as a culture, and it is a shift that could lead us to a dangerous place.
The shift is this: what used to be valued was self-sacrifice. Our culture and our society used to value someone who laid down their wants or desires for the sake of others; someone who gave up on their dreams so that they could help people around them. It used to be honorable to sacrifice for those around you, your family, your children, your neighbors, your country. But this value has shifted. And now in our culture, if you sacrifice your wants or your desires for those around you, you aren’t being true to yourself. Nowadays, what is valued is doing what feels good for yourself. We don’t put it in such strong language, but basically, what our society is telling us is that your happiness is the ultimate good. We might say it in different ways: be true to yourself, follow your heart, but it basically means that we are supposed to be selfish.
This might not seem like much, but it pervades our culture and our world, and is quite dangerous. It means that we are told that we should be focused on ourselves first. It means that our first goal in life is to find happiness, and happiness sought after is always outside of our reach. And when we do this, when we focus on this we end up making decisions that hurt those around us. When we focus too much on trying to make sure that we are happy, we end up walking into sin and broken relationship. People walk away from their families because they don’t feel happy in them anymore. People enter lives of sin because it feels good, and let me tell you that many sins feel good.
Now, it might seem like the right response to this is to encourage people to seek after their own happiness as long as it doesn’t hurt the happiness of those around them. This is the compromise that many make. But this is still buying into the value that our culture around us is pushing, that happiness is the ultimate good.
II. Jesus’ Prayer
But Jesus gives us an example in today’s scripture that is quite different. It is the example of a servant; it is the example of someone who puts God’s will before their own happiness. And when we contrast it to the disciples, who are more interested in sleeping than supporting their Lord, or our own lives where we are more interested in our own happiness than anything else, we see how radical and powerful Jesus’ self-sacrifice was.
Jesus was facing a difficult time. He knew what was coming for him, and he knew how horribly difficult it would be for him. If he had bought into our belief that you’ve got to do what feels good, you’ve got to chase after your own happiness; he’d never be where he was. But he knew that there was something more important than his own happiness at stake, and so he prayed.
Jesus’ prayer here is powerful. It is powerful because it helps us to see what it is like to face difficult times. It helps us see what our priorities should be. Jesus didn’t want to go to the cross. He didn’t want to face such a horrible death. He hoped and longed for another way. He asked God to deliver him from what it was he was about to face. But he didn’t leave it there. He wanted to be delivered from it, but he put his will in God’s will. “Not my will, but thine be done.” Jesus let his requests be known to God. He told God what it was that he desired; what it was that he hoped for. But then he made it clear that he would follow God’s path for him, wherever that may lead. Jesus’ priority was not his own will. His priority, rather was to follow where God was leading him.
III. Our Purpose
Happiness was not the ultimate end that Jesus was seeking, neither his nor others. What was the ultimate end for him was following God’s will. Do we find ourselves following Jesus’ example. When we face a question, when we face a problem, when we are tempted by sin, what is it that we ask ourselves? Is this going to make me happy? Or what is God’s will?
Our society has decided that the second question is not the right question to ask. There are even churches that have as their message the idea that God’s will can be simply stated in that he wants us to be happy. And therefore you don’t need to choose between the two. But this is not what the Bible says. Sometimes seeking after your own well being, sometimes seeking after your own happiness, will send you down the wrong path. It will find you turned in on yourself and serving yourself. But if we choose to seek God’s will for our lives. If we choose to follow Jesus’ example in the garden, to tell God that it isn’t our will that counts, but his, then we will find our purpose.
That is a deep truth that Christians and the church need to be sharing with the world around us, and it is not a popular one. The truth is that our purpose in life, our goal in life, shouldn’t just be to be happy. If we seek after only happiness we will discover that we have harmed those around us and even ourselves trying to find it. And the happiness that we do find will be fleeting and never be enough for us. But if we instead seek after God’s will, we will find ourselves in places where we don’t necessarily feel happy, but we will find joy and we will find peace.
Now, it’s hard to say that Jesus found joy in what he faced in the Garden of Gethsemane, but he did find peace. When he gave his will over to his Father, he found peace and strength to go on, to face the unfaceable. And his death and resurrection did bring joy not only for him but for all who trust in him, for the whole world.
This is a difficult message to share because it doesn’t come across terribly well. “Don’t seek after happiness.” It truly goes against what our culture tells us we should seek after. But when we explain that seeking after happiness only brings fleeting happiness and seeking after God’s will brings heavenly joy, when we explain that the quest for happiness is a false quest that will send us in the wrong direction, then perhaps we realize what is truly important in this world, and in doing so we realize what it is that we are called to do. Jesus gives us the example in Gethsemane. Seek after God’s will, not our own. It may not be easy, but it is what God calls us to. Amen.
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