JESUS CHRIST MY HERO
Zephaniah 3:17

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A hero is "a man of courage and nobility famed for his military achievements: an illustrious warrior" (Webster's Dictionary).

The hero of my childhood is my earthly father, Ernest William Parks.

He first became a hero to me during the time he served as a firefighter in the Fire Department of my home town, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. One day in my preschool years, in the early 1950s, a fire blazed next to our house. He rode to the rescue on an engine with sirens blaring. Taking hose in hand, he attacked and extinguished the threatening blaze, thereby ensuring the safety of our house. What a hero to a wee lad!

His stature as my hero increased when I later learned of his earlier military service during World War II. When his nation was drawn into a war, he enlisted "for the duration" and served his country as a warrior courageously, nobly, and illustriously. He was a paratrooper in the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. I listened with rapt attention as he told of earning his jump boots at Fort Bragg, of serving under General "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin, of camping in North Africa, of parachuting into Sicily and Salerno, of time spent on battlefields in Naples and Anzio, of being wounded by shrapnel in the Ardennes of Belgium, and of finally celebrating the victory. I often inspected that drawer in which he kept his Purple Heart, medals, ribbons, ropes, uniform insignia, and his bayonet – tokens of the military achievements of the illustrious warrior who was my hero.

But my hero par excellence is the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Exemplar. Although most ascribe noble qualities to Him, many may think it strange to consider him a hero. He is to many effeminate, not manly; weak, not strong; an appeasing pacifist, not an illustrious warrior; submissive before threats, not courageous against them; retiring from conflict, not charging into it; one in need of a hero, not a hero to those in need.

Holy Scriptures most emphatically declare Jesus Christ to be a hero, "a man of courage and nobility famed for his military achievements: an illustrious warrior". This they do by identifying Him with the Hebrew title Gibbor, meaning "Mighty One", which word may be translated "champion" (as with Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:51). The root of this Hebrew word is commonly associated with warfare, and denotes the strength and vitality of the successful warrior.

The illustrious warriors of Israel were identified as valorous gibbors, or "mighty men of valor". These included such military heroes as Gideon (Judges 6:12), who delivered Israel from the Midianites; and Jephthah (Judges 11:1), who delivered Israel from the Ammonites; and David the "man of war" (1 Samuel 16:18), who delivered Israel first from the Philistine champion Goliath and then from all her enemies on every side. These men were not effeminate and weak pacifists submitting before their enemies and retiring from conflicts. Rather, they were heroes and champions! They were the kind of men you want to fight the blaze that threatens to destroy your house and the armed force that threatens to conquer your city and nation.

And Jesus Christ is such a man! He is "The LORD strong and mighty [gibbor], the LORD mighty in battle" (Psalm 24:8). His people have besought Him in time of need (as in Psalm 45:3-5), "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One [Gibbor], with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; the peoples fall under You." After His battle with Pharaoh at the Red Sea, His people declared Him to be an illustrious warrior famed for His military achievements when they sang, "The LORD is a man of war"; "He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea! The LORD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation" (Exodus 15:1-3).

And Jesus Christ is presented as the Hero of His people in our present text (Zephaniah 3:17): "The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save." He is here presented as the Hero, for He is designated "The Mighty One" (Gibbor). He is the divine Hero, for this Gibbor is "Jehovah your God". (He is elsewhere twice identified as El Gibbor: in Isaiah 9:6 He is the "Mighty God"; in Jeremiah 32:17 He is "the Mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts".) He is the ever-present Hero, for He is "the LORD your God in your midst", as Immanuel, "God with Us" (Matthew 1:23 / Isaiah 7:14). He is the delivering Hero, for "The Mighty One will save." He therefore deserves to be acknowledged as my Hero.

I. Jesus Christ is my Hero in the battle against my deceiver. I am a Gentile. My forefathers in Old Testament times were "without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" – "far off" (Ephesians 2:12f). They lived in "times of ignorance" (Acts 17:30) in those "bygone generations [when God] allowed all nations to walk in their own ways" (Acts 14:16). They therefore knew nothing of the blessedness of the "Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises" (Romans 9:4). And apart from divine intervention, they and their progeny were doomed to perish. But Christ came in His incarnation on a mission of war against "the great dragon ..., that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). He came as the delivering Angel of Jehovah (cp. Genesis 16:7ff; Isaiah 63:9; Malachi 3:1). He laid hold of the deceiver and bound him in order to deliver those whom he had deceived (Matthew 12:29). He then cast him out of his position as the ruler and deceiver of the Gentile world (John 12:31-33). "Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it" (Colossians 2:15). Christ now rules and reigns where Satan once claimed dominion (Revelation 20:1-6). Consequently, "The [Gentile] people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned" (Matthew 4:15f / Isaiah 9:1f). What a Hero is Christ to this Gentile delivered from Satan's deception!

II. Jesus Christ is my Hero in the battle for my soul. There I was ... in "the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:26). I "walked ... according to the prince of the power of the air [Satan, the prince of darkness], the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2). I was a "slave of sin" (Romans 6:6), which is Satan's domain, and it had dominion over me (v.20), and reigned in my mortal body so that I obeyed it in its lusts (v.12). Being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1), I was incapable of delivering myself from Satan my master. But the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to the rescue. Having bound Satan in order to plunder his goods (Matthew 12:29), He strode into my master's prison and declared, "The Spirit of Jehovah is upon Me ...; He has sent Me ... to proclaim liberty to the captives, ... to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah" (Luke 4:18f / Isaiah 61:1f). As He did with Peter in Herod's prison (Acts 12:5-11), He dispersed the darkness of my prison with His presence, awakened me with a nudge of grace, caused my chains to fall through His omnipotence, clothed me in garments of salvation, caused the gates of the prison to open, and led me through them past helpless guards into the glorious liberty of the children of God. What a Hero to this prisoner of Satan and slave of sin!

III. Jesus Christ is my Hero when Satan's forces besiege me. The foremost example of this will be at the last day (as set forth in Revelation 20:7-10): "Now when the thousand years [or millennial reign of Christ] have expired, Satan will be released from his prison [the place of restricted activity in which he is confined] and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city [the Jerusalem in which Christ's people dwell]. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." This devouring fire will be one of Christ's instruments of war, the "devouring fire from His mouth" (Psalm 18:8). In this final battle of the world's greatest heroes, Satan and Christ, Christ will be the only one standing when the conflict is over. Truly, "The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

This is what Christ does for those who cry out in faith to Him for salvation. He becomes their Hero! Is He your Hero?

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