Exposure to Heroes

For me, one of the most powerful insights into the mind and heart of a true hero is in an almost offhand remark of St. Paul’s. He writes from prison in Rome to his friends at Philippi and shares with them his own personal life goal: “ . . . it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. . . . I am hard pressed between the two.” The word that translates “courage” is in fact the word “openness.” He is saying, “I want to live my life as a follower of Jesus Christ out in the open.” I’ve been thinking about this word as a courage word, and I think it helps me come up with a definition of heroism and courage.

A hero is that person willing to stay exposed to danger or out in the open just a few minutes or even seconds longer than most people. He or she may not feel braver than other people, and may even be quaking with real fear, and yet stays out in the wind. When an interviewer asks such heroes why they stayed in such a threatening place, they usually are surprised by the question. “Well, we just had to get those kids out of that car . . .”

Paul’s next sentence helps us understand the source of this openness. Paul tells us that he has both his life and his death in his mind and he leaves both in God’s hand. I think John Calvin put it right in the way he explains Paul’s remarkable statement: “Interpreters have hitherto, in my opinion, given a wrong rendering and exposition to this passage; for they make this distinction, that Christ was life to Paul and death was gain. I on the other hand, make Christ the subject of discourse in both clauses, so that he is declared to be gain to him both in life and in death.”

It is Paul's fresh matter-of-fact nature that shows his trust in God. It is the Lord who keeps his eyes on one Christian named Paul so that whatever happens, nothing can change the most basic fact about Paul’s life: namely, that he is safe both in life and in death in the hand of his Lord and friend.

Because of this, the man named Paul, who writes a letter to Phillipi, takes risks most people shy from, and now we name our sons after him, and cities too. Paul is a hero.