"One ..."

I'm standing on the arm of the living room sofa, getting ready to jump. At 9 years old I'm not much of a Superman, but it isn't for lack of trying. I have my hair (which is inconveniently blond) slicked back in the best Superhero do I can manage.

"Two ..."

The bed sheet draped across my narrow shoulders serves as an impromptu cape. With my scrawny chest puffed out in proud defiance, all I need is a little superpower to hold me up once I leap into midair. I'm not just any Superman mind you — I'm Christian Superman, fresh from a Sunday school lesson on faith.

"Three ..."

"You can move mountains," my teacher told me, "if only you have faith like a mustard seed." If faith can move mountains, I reason, sending my 80-pound body soaring should be a cinch.

Thump!

You guessed it. My flight from the couch (and reality) ended in a heap on the living room floor. Over time the bruises healed. Eventually my faith matured. And since that day I hadn't given Superman much thought, until recently, when I was asked to attend a press screening of Superman Returns.

In one way the movie was very much what you'd expect from a summer blockbuster: crazy effects (in one slow-mo scene a bullet bounces off Superman's eyeball!), nail-biting rescues, a romantic subplot and enough cheese to make a pizza. All the same, there was something nostalgic and oddly warming about watching the Man of Steel sweep across the big screen again, this time embodied by 26-year-old Brandon Routh. Routh bears uncanny resemblance to the late actor Christopher Reeve, which made Superman's reentry into my imagination feel effortless.

But, as I sat basking in the glow of Superman's rebirth, I realized there was something quite different about this latest rendering. Like my childhood fantasy, this Superman story came with some Christian ideas thrown in. A lot of them. So many it made me wonder whether I was sitting in a theater or a church.

The film's opening lines sound like a bad translation of the Gospel of John. Superman's father delivers a posthumous message to his son:

"Even though you've been raised as a human being, you're not one of them. They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all — their capacity for good — I have sent them you, my only son."

Scriptural echoes don't stop there. Superman's relationship to his father remains a focal point. "The son is in the father, and the father is in the son," is a recurrent line. Then there's the suffering servant motif. In one scene Superman suffers at the hands of his enemies in a manner reminiscent of Golgotha, right down to receiving a wound in his side. In another scene, after making a dramatic rescue, Superman "dies," falling from the sky with arms outstretched in the unmistakable shape of the cross. So explicit are the parallels that CNN dubbed the movie "another gospel" for Christian movie fans.

So what are we to make of this?

Well, CNN may be overstating things a bit. This movie is no fifth gospel. In fact it's not even perfect allegory; it's echo and allusion. The Man of Steel is no Man of Sorrows, no matter how much you play up the similarities. With his sculpted body and flashy powers Superman calls to mind the gods of ancient Greece — not the Jesus of the Bible. Still it is intriguing to see a Hollywood movie addressing Messianic themes, however imperfectly. Perhaps most interesting, though, is what the movie says about us. Superman Returns has a powerful and distinctly Christian message about our need for a savior. For this reason I think the film could serve as an excellent starting point for fruitful discussions between Christians and unbelieving friends.

The strongest commentary on this topic comes in the interactions between Superman and Lois Lane. Lois, the hard-nosed reporter, has won the Pulitzer Prize for writing an article entitled, "Why the world doesn't need Superman." In one especially poignant scene series, she lashes out at Superman, "The world doesn't need a Savior and neither do I!" Superman doesn't respond immediately. Instead he takes her up for a flight into the silence of the stratosphere.

"What do you hear?" he asks her.

"Nothing," she replies.

For a moment we hear through Superman's ears: A chorus of a thousand desperate voices rings in his head.

"I hear everything," he tells her.

Back on the ground he makes his point. "In your article you wrote that people don't need a Savior, yet everyday I hear people crying for one."

This struck me as a powerful exchange. It may sound like a simple idea: that people need a savior. But to see this idea developed in the context of a big budget movie is rather remarkable. Hollywood films tend to preach a gospel of self-sufficiency. In movies the moment of salvation usually comes when the character stops looking for help from others and starts seeking strength from within. That's when triumph is at hand — when the character musters the self-confidence or courage to prevail.

Even biblical stories can get shoe-horned into this familiar mold in tinsel town. Recently I watched a television series on Moses that had the great leader of Israel spouting straight pop psychology at his beleaguered soldiers on the eve of battle. "God is not going to save you this time," he thundered. "God wants you to save yourself!"

Huh? "Save yourself?" Don't remember that line in the Bible.

Superman Returns is different. It entertains no such illusions about our abilities. In this way it echoes important biblical teaching. In Scripture, supreme self-confidence isn't lauded as heroic, it's denounced as sin. Righteousness is described as total dependence on God. It's realizing that we're sinful and fallen. Only once we turn to the Savior with humility and gratitude are we saved.

We're not much for saviors these days. We prefer to think that we have all the necessary resources to save ourselves. Relying on a savior makes us feel weak, needy and desperate. But the truth is that we are weak, needy and desperate. And really, that's the first tenet of the gospel: Spiritually, we all need a Savior.

Of course Superman Returns highlights this theme only by way of metaphor. The Superhero saves bodies, not souls. Yet the story seems to argue for the necessity of a savior, which is a refreshing theme to encounter in a secular film.

This week millions of moviegoers will settle into theater seats looking for entertainment. Hopefully, they will find much more. Just maybe they will leave the movie thinking about their own need for a Savior. And we as Christians must be prepared to tell them His name.

And in case you're wondering, it's not Superman.