Superheroes and supervillains always get the coolest abilities. We normal simpletons down here just live boring ol’ lives, while those guys get some fantastical transformation that gives them cool powers that they use for good or for evil.
Us, your humble authors? We just wish we had the power to figure out how to set the clock on the microwave.
And there are two of us.
Still, in the comics and movies, superheroes always start off as regular folk like the rest of us, then undergo some crazy transformation to become something super.
Take, for example, the rise of the Sandman. On the run from the law, Flint Marko tries to find refuge in a big field. But the field isn’t big enough, apparently, because he finds himself being chased by police officers and growling, snapping dogs.
Ah, but what’s this? A chain-link fence! With razor wire on top of it! Surely no one but Flint can overcome this obstacle. He scrambles over the fence (but not before punching out one of those mean dogs), which is helpfully labeled with a chuckle-inducing sign: PARTICLE PHYSICS TEST FACILITY: KEEP OUT.
Just so you know.
Flint keeps on running and stumbles headlong into a big pit of sand with big whirly light bulbs on top of it. The light bulbs start whirling around our man Flint and, thanks to the miracle of modern moviemaking, we see him turn into sand right in front of our eyes. The cops show up, Flint isn’t there, they scratch their heads, the end.
Not quite.
Here is a guy who is, as he already explained, not a bad person—he’s just had bad luck. Which is true, to a point. Yet he still chose to break the law. Yes, his reasons were honorable—he wanted to bring healing to his daughter—but he still broke the law, and that landed him in jail. Although his desires were ultimately good, he went about trying to achieve them in a wrong way, and it nearly cost his life when he fell into that particle accelerator.
And even though his flesh is decimated by that strange nighttime experiment, his desires remain.
In what is, in our opinion, the most poetic and artistic sequence in the entire Spider-Man filmography, we are treated to a visually stunning representation of Flint’s ascendance as the Sandman. Starting with just a few grains, we see the sand begin to take on a life of its own, flowing in various streams toward each other, almost like water (indeed, there is a nice little crashing wave effect at one point). We see Flint struggling, struggling, struggling to pull these grains together into a meaningful shape.
His body keeps breaking apart. With great effort, he assumes a human-like shape, pulsing, rising out of the mound of sand. His hands are more like big paws, and the rest of him is mere outline.
And then, miraculously, he sees something glinting in the sand. Something that has remained unchanged by the particle accelerator.
The locket.
His desire.
It’s the locket that Penny, his daughter, gave to him. He reaches for it with his sandy mitt. He can’t close the block-like appendage over the locket, and his body breaks into a big pile of sand, while the locket remains half-buried in the mound.
Congratulations to the visual effects artists who worked on this sequence, for wringing genuine emotion and downright art out of a bunch of pixels. Because we now see determination spread across Flint’s sandy face. He reaches out his arm again, and this time, he wills it to take a more human shape. Instead of big boxing-glove-like hands, he forces the form of actual fingers and reaches, gingerly, to retrieve the locket.
This is all he needs. Summoning deep desire from within his very soul, Flint finishes the job, staggering out of the pit looking completely like his old self.
We hope we aren’t taken to task for this—because there are obvious pitfalls with the comparison we’re about to make—but there are many parallels between the rise of the Sandman and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Okay, okay. First things first: Jesus was not a villain. Of course. We know that. We’re not saying He was. We hope you’re able to look past the obvious contradiction and see this scene from the movie for what it is: an astonishing portrayal of one person miraculously struggling to resurrect himself, whose guiding motivation is love for his child.
Jesus came to this earth out of love. He was sent out of love. God loves us like crazy—more than we love ourselves. Romans 8:38-39 tells us about His love, about how expansive it is:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is not a thing in this world that can take God’s love away from us. Even if our lives feel like they’ve been smashed to bits by the whirling light bulbs of an experimental particle accelerator. Even if this existence feels like nothing more than a conglomeration of a few million grains of sand. And even if we deserve all that—God is still faithful in His love for us.
How can we know? Because Jesus proved it on the cross. He endured the greatest humiliation that has ever been endured; He suffered the greatest shame that has ever been suffered. What Jesus experienced as He died had never been experienced by anyone up to that point in history and has never been duplicated again. He hung on the cross as a condemned criminal; an innocent man wrongly condemned. That was not so unusual. What made His experience unparalleled was that He was executed for every crime that had been committed or ever would be committed. Jesus is the ultimate Judge, yet He hung in the place of all criminals. The enormity of hell opened up and unleashed its full fury on the One who created hell—and heaven. And Jesus took all of this willingly. It was a singular event that has no equal.
And then, after three days, He came back to life. Victorious. Whole. Clean. He brought Himself low, submitted Himself to death … and then beat the pants off it to be resurrected. And His motivation?
Love.
Love for you.
Love for His child.
The next time you watch Flint Marko’s resurrection scene in Spider-Man 3, think about that love—the love of Jesus. Think about how He fought for you. Watch it as a portrayal of His love for you. Watch, and be amazed.
There are no limits to the love Jesus has for you.