The Heroes We Want

In his groundbreaking book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell, a professor of literature and comparative mythology, proposed the idea of the “universal hero story.” Through his exhaustive study of world religions and thousands of years of ancient mythology, he shows that hero stories have existed in every culture and at every time, from cavemen to corporate America.

Although heroes take many forms, Campbell shows they all follow a similar narrative journey—whether Osiris of the Egyptians or Luke Skywalker of Tatooine.

This says something about the human condition – it says something about our hearts. We all want a hero to save the day, someone to fix our messes, defeat our enemies, and make everything right when it all seems so out of sync.

This week, we will look at the idea of heroes and ask the dual questions: What kind of hero do we want, and is it the kind of hero we see in the person of Jesus?