Rogue Heroes
9.8 million of us watch Rogue Heroes.
Until yesterday my reaction to Rogue Heroes was probably typical: so much appealed, the sense of adventure into the unknown, the hostile environment of the desert, the danger of the wilderness quite apart from the Nazis, the escape from ponderous, misguided, and unimaginative authority structure bogged down in Cairo to actually achieve something out of all proportion to their numbers…the stuff of legends and heroes. It has a certain visceral appeal.
And then yesterday happened: it started to speak to me, as if it wanted to teach me something, make me see something. It almost switched from being a TV adaptation of history to being a parable of sorts.
Victory forged in the desert.
The biblical examples poured in, with a twist.
Moses, a murderer had escaped to the wilderness, the desert. Once a prince living in luxury in Pharoah’s palace was exiled to herding a flock of sheep in the desert for forty years. But it was in the desert that he encountered the burning bush. God. The Exodus was forged in the desert long before the Jews caught sight of Moses with his stick, or Pharoah refused to let the Jews depart.
David, again used to a palace existence playing music for Saul the king, was chased out of the palace into the desert, the wilderness, ending up in the cave of Adullam with those in debt and trouble. But in this nomadic stage, a new Israel was born to replace Saul’s kingdom.
Victory forged in the desert
And Jesus. If we charismatic Christians had written the script it would have read something like ‘And Jesus came to John to baptised in the Jordan. As He came up out of the water, the dove fell on Him as the Holy Spirit anointed Him with the power to be the Messiah. The next day he went to preach at Nazareth and a man with a withered hand came in and Jesus healed him. The next day a thousand more came and by the end of the month, he was walking into Jerusalem as King’. But we know that the first work of the Spirit in Jesus was to drive (the Greek word ‘balo’ is the same word used for driving out demons) Jesus into the desert to face the devil. After the wilderness came the ministry AND the discipling of the twelve and the others.
We should not be surprised if we find ourselves in a desert, a dry place, a wilderness. It is here we get our specialist training. That’s the first point.
The second is this. The twist. It’s not a solitary hero that emerges from the desert. The Hollywood Jesus is handsome, taller than the disciples, and dressed in white, while the women and the apostles wear duller clothing. He has a perfectly groomed beard and walks and talks like a refined John Wayne; his six-shooter replaced with resurrection power, and he’s quick on the draw. I love this Jesus, of course!
Man of sorrows acquainted with grief
But the Jesus of the New Testament had nowhere to lay his head. His family thought he was insane. He suffered constant opposition. Many who followed him for the miracles turned away at the cost. He was as Isaiah had prophesied ‘A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief’. And all the time it was with others who shared the same existence and faced the same foes. This ‘band of brothers’ could only function due to the constant giving and support from the women in His travelling band. Christianity was born as a mobile Adullam cave!
If you’re in a desert, maybe you need to ‘see’ Rogue heroes differently. It’s dry and hot, and relentless. It’s a wilderness with little comfort. But there’s a divine purpose hidden from view.
the gospel isn’t just for impressive people, it’s for everyone
I sit on my settee watching. So impressed. Thinking I’d like to be that courageous, that skilled, that resilient, that purposeful…knowing I’m not! I’ll always be impressed by impressive people. But the gospel isn’t just for impressive people, it’s for everyone.
So, watching Rogue Heroes with different eyes, whatever the past may have been to land us in the desert, in the wilderness, I know Someone who seems to meet His people there and join us to others…see this verse from Jeremiah. Note it’s not singular, it’s plural.
‘The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness’ Jeremiah 31 v 2