In November 2023, Business Insider reported that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was officially “the biggest movie franchise in history, having earned more than $29 billion worldwide.” That is a mind-blowing amount of money. Why are the Marvel films so popular? Among other reasons, I think they scratch our itch for power.
The MCU glorifies powerful people—superheroes—who can save the rest of us, ordinarily through acts of incredible violence. Some of the most popular TV series of recent decades—think Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Smallville—operate on the same premise: The protagonist saves the day by use of his or her (ordinarily violent) power.
Humans have a basic thirst for power. Power allows us to get things done. We think that power will solve our problems and rid our suffering. Perhaps that is why so many professing evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential elections in the United States. He promised power. “Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power.”
Sadly, far too many people fail to recognise the dangers that come with power. Lord Acton famously asserted, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is the guiding premise of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The Ring of Power corrupts all those who wear it. Even the great wizard Gandalf will not take the ring when it is offered to him. “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.” The Ring may grant him power to help people, but he does not trust himself in the long term to wield that sort of power. He knows that the power of the Ring will ultimately corrupt him.
This thirst for power is intrinsic to humanity, but it should be alien to Christianity. Throughout Scripture, God’s kingdom advances most in the absence of worldly power. Ancient kings amassed wealth, military might, and foreign alliances as a show of power. Israel’s kings were expressly forbidden from following this pattern (Deuteronomy 17:14–17). While Rome displayed its power in military conquest, Jesus’ kingdom was different. “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). Unlike earthly empires, Jesus’ kingdom would not come by military conquest. Quite the opposite, it would be secured through death.
Jesus reminded his disciples of this principle in his last instruction to them. He would soon ascend to take his throne at his Father’s right hand. His kingdom would advance. But not in the way of earthly empires. He promised power—but a very different kind of power. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). How would Jesus’ power be made manifest? By his followers being “witnesses.”
The force of this may escape the modern English reader, but it surely would have struck Jesus’ followers. The word translated “witnesses” is the Greek word martys, from which we derive the English word “martyr.” Jesus was saying, in other words, that the power he was giving was the power for his people to be martyrs. It was the power to die. It was not the power of political authority, or social acceptance, or legal victory, or military conquest, but the power of death. Indeed, how can we know the power of Christ’s resurrection (Philippians 3:10) apart from death? Does resurrection not presuppose death?
What does it mean that Christianity’s power lies in martyrdom—in being “witnesses”? Does it mean that Christianity advances most in times of persecution—that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church? Does it mean that the church will always grow in places of the most intense persecution? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whatever it means, it surely means that the source of Christian power is very different to the source of worldly power. Christianity thrives on an otherworldly power source.
Kyle Strobel and Jamin Goggin capture the distinction well in their book The Way of the Dragon and the Way of the Lamb:
The way of the dragon is fixated on the spectacular, obsessed with recognition and validation, intoxicated by fame and power. The way of the Lamb is committed to worship, pursues God in the ordinary, and is faithful in hiddenness. The dragon devours and dominates, while the Lamb humbly and sacrificially serves.
In Rome, the cross was a symbol of power. It symbolised Rome’s ability to crush anyone who threatened its power. Crucifixion was a public display of power. When Roman governor Pilate authorised Jesus’ crucifixion, he did so on the basis that Jesus was a revolutionary. His crime, displayed on that notice nailed to the cross above his head, was that he claimed to be King of the Jews. Onlookers would have understood that to be the claim of an insurrectionist. This Jesus, who had sought to overthrow Roman power, was being crucified in a display of Roman power.
Is it not significant, then, that the early Christians took this very symbol of Roman power and turned it into the source of Christian power? Rome intended the cross to symbolise Jesus’ defeat; the apostles considered the cross to be the symbol of Christ’s victory. His power was most vividly displayed in weakness.
How often do we get this wrong as Christians? How often do we make the error of thinking that the advance of the gospel is dependent on worldly power? What a tragic error. If the power that God has given to his people is otherworldly, how can we possibly imagine that we will advance his kingdom by earthly means? Perhaps it is time to stop pursuing gospel advance by means of worldly power and embrace afresh the power of the cross—the power to be Christ’s witnesses—to be his martyrs! Perhaps it is time to die to self, to be willing to be wronged and marginalised, to be willing to suffer with him and trust his power to work through our suffering, as God’s power worked through his. This is the way of the cross.