Avengers & Easter

I just bought my tickets to Avengers Endgame. The end of an era. Starting with Iron Man in 2008, Marvel has released 21 movies, soon to be 22, and John and I have seen all but one in theaters. To include that time in 2014 we were asked to leave the theater because we tried to take a baby. We have been dedicated to these stories and characters for over a decade, and in just a couple weeks this iteration will come to an end.

If you couldn’t tell, we are pretty big fans of superheroes around here. My favorites have been the characters with a strong moral compass, like Superman and Captain America, those who would be heroes with or without the cape or shield. But as a parent, I find that I identify with the Hulk on a personal level. 

Nothing can show you how many buttons you’ve got and how quickly they can be pushed like having kids. At times it feels like someone is standing at the door of your sanity going ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong over and over til you lose your ever loving mind. You can feel it happening, that pent up rage you’ve been bottling up and pushing down with each successive annoyance and irritation. Repeating yourself, fighting siblings, whining about dinner, refusing to brush their teeth, yelling, crying, disobedience, disrespect. The bottle has a limit, it can only hold so much before the internal pressure explodes outward. The next thing you know, you’ve turned from the mild-mannered mom you were trying to be into an out of control, larger than life, hulk.

“You’re making me angry, you won’t like me when I’m angry.” The implied words in my crazy eyes that the kids don’t seem to pick up.

We’ve all been there as parents, when your kids are heaping disrespect on you like they’ve got a shovel and their disobedience is willful and defiant. Those are the moments I feel justified in letting loose.

“I’m always angry,” Bruce admits in The Avengers as he transforms on demand into the Hulk. It’s there you see his real power. Not in the ability to wantonly smash, but in the ability to constantly hold the beast at bay. The longer I parent, the more I realize the extreme value and power in restraint. While the Hulk certainly is an entertaining picture, I receive the perfect image of it when I look to Christ.

He spoke the world into existence. His very mouth created matter from nothing, his breath gave life to a world that had known none. One day, it will be his voice that speaks forth and ends the tyranny of Satan and sin. Yet 2000 years ago, before the people who would kill him, he was silent. When he was mocked and humiliated, when it would take one utterance to end it all, he showed the power of restraint. Restraint in holding back the manifestation of his deity, of containing his all-powerful nature, and instead suffering and dying as a man. Dying for me, because he knew that even though he was blameless, I am not.

His restraint saved my life.

My restraint gives my children an earthly picture of that grace. When I inevitably fail, my apology gives my children an example of why the restraint Christ showed is vital to our everyday life. 

I look forward to enjoying the Avengers one last time. But even more, I look forward to celebrating Easter and the gift I received because of Christ’s restraint, and the forgiveness it bought without limit and without end.