Over the past several months, C and I have been having fairly regular conversations regarding super heroes. He’s primarily interested in Superman and Spiderman, with occasional questions about Batman. Unfortunately, there aren’t any appropriate superhero cartoons or movies these days, so he only knows of these heroes through talking with other people. This has made his curiosity burn all the brighter.

For example, he started a conversation one day by asking who was faster – Superman or Spiderman. This expanded into a full blown comparison of Superman, Spiderman and Batman. We finally decided that Superman is the fastest and the strongest, but Batman is the smartest. Spiderman, of course, has a web, and can climb really well.

These sorts of comparisons have leaked out into other areas. We’ve also had talks comparing the gorillas and cheetahs, for example.

The other day he stumped me.

“Daddy,” he said, “Jesus is faster than Superman.”

I thought about it for a moment, and then decided to dodge the question. “Well, I’m not sure. Superman wasn’t real. It’s tough to compare – “

“Yeah, but Jesus is faster than a cheetah!” He interrupted.

“Hmm… I don’t think so. Running wasn’t really Jesus’ thing.” Feeling vaguely sacrilegious,  I added, “I mean, He did other stuff besides running, but, as far as I know, He never really tried sprinting.” I paused. “And cheetahs are really fast” I added lamely.

“Oh.” He thought about that for a little bit, and then asked a follow up question. “Jesus was faster than you are, though. Right?”

This is where my brain turned off and I said “Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty fast…”

“Naw! Jesus was faster than you!”

Remember that vague sacrilegious feeling I had? Well, now it felt more like warning sirens spinning around in the back of my head. Somehow, I’d ended up in the position of comparing myself to Jesus. I’m sure footspeed was never on high on His list of priorities, but still…

“Probably,” I agreed.

C smiled and went back to playing with his trains.

I’m sure there’s a biblical scholar out there that could tell me His time in the 100 yard dash, but don’t bother. I’m willing to forfeit the race..