(Guest post by Ben)
**Spoiles for Daredevil Born Again Season 1**
“It’s hard to come to terms with a violent nature. Hating the power that it has over us.”
“I was raised to believe in grace. That we can be touched by the divine and transformed into a better person. So, if you say to me that you’re a new man, I say, “Fine.” But you should know, I was also raised to believe in retribution. So, if you step out of line. I will be there.”
This loaded exchange between Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock in the opening episode of Daredevil: Born Again is foreshadowing for the plot of the entire season. Fisk is running for mayor and though he has fooled much of the city into thinking his previous arrests were by corrupt cops and that he is truly innocent, he knows that Matt Murdock knows the truth. He also knows that Matt wrestles with his violent nature while wanting to believe in his goodness. This season of Daredevil asks the question: can we really change? Satan, and Fisk, would have us believe that we can’t, that its only a matter of time before our nature takes over. All we can do is put on a fake mask in an effort to manipulate others. Matt Murdock wants to believe he can change, but isn’t so sure and, throughout this season, wrestles with dramatic versions of what we all wrestle with—the natural man and the desire to become something more.
Of course, be warned, there will be a few spoilers in this devotional!
Ever since my first year of early morning seminary, Mosiah 3:19 has been one of my favorite scriptures:
“The natural man is an enemy to God…unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, putteth off the natural man, and becometh a Saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord.”
I have always found comfort in the belief that who I can be is not limited strictly to my natural, genetic, biological self. There is divinity within me and I can become more than my nature through the enabling grace of Jesus Christ. There’s a word that describes “more than nature”—supernatural. The word King Benjamin uses is “saints”. But how do we become “supernatural saints”, or as Matt Murdock put it, how can we be “touched by the divine and transformed into a better person”? Like the Daredevil, we have to be born again.
The character arc for Matt is his efforts to fight evil in a new way. The season starts with his best friend being killed by Bullseye, the man he sent to prison at the end of the previous series. This death is absolutely devastating for Matt; it is transformative for his view of the world and how to make a difference. He retires the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and commits to changing the city through the legal system (Matt is an attorney). However, he watches helplessly as his efforts to defend the innocent and prosecute the evil feel like a toy hammer against a mountain.
At the end of episode two he is attacked by two dirty cops and by instinct defends himself violently. After defeating them, he screams in frustration. Is this all he is? Is this what it will always come back to? The vigilante self that he resists is a profound metaphor for the messaging we all receive from Satan. It is as if the Devil himself, Satan, is in his ear, “you can’t change who you are! THIS is who you are! Give in!”.
Later in episode four, he seeks out the Punisher because one of the dirty cops is using bullet casings with punisher logos on them. This interaction is a powerfully introspective experience for Matt. The Punisher challenges why he is really there and what he really wants. As if he were voice of the devil inside him, Punisher pushes,
“I don’t think you came here for my help. I think you want my permission…you’re guilty. That guilt that shame, that’s my home, and I can see it on you, I can smell it on you, its all over you.”
Just like Satan, who wants everyone to be as miserable as himself, he tries to make Matt lean into his carnal, basic, natural self. He wants him to embrace his inability to change who he is. He continues to antagonize Matt until Matt loses his temper and punches him in the face—the devil inside him briefly coming out. Matt immediately apologizes, gripping his fists and breathing deeply trying to shove that side of him back deep down. “Sorry, I apologize.” To which the Punisher responds, “What are you sorry for? First honest thing you did, Red.”
There are many more scenes that further illustrate Matt’s struggle with the devil—his struggle with the world around him and the means to his worthy ends. But in the end, the series finishes as you would expect. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen returns—he finally “gives in” when a young woman has been taken by a serial killer and Matt knows the police won’t be fast enough to save her. In dramatic parallel fashion, the scenes of Daredevil saving this victim are interwoven with scenes of Kingpin violently beating a man he has a personal vendetta against. The message seems to be that Kingpin was right, no one can resist their violent nature, neither of them have changed.
But Kingpin, and Satan, are wrong. Matt has become something new—just not the new that he thought he was becoming. In the climactic conclusion to the season (which ends on a cliffhanger, things aren’t even a little bit resolved here!), Daredevil realizes he can’t do this alone, and the change he needed to make was one of working together with the system—not abandoning his unique strengths and abilities, but embracing the help of others and forming a team. Fisk has declared martial law in New York City, and is now brutally killing those who won’t follow, but the final scene is Daredevil walking into a room filled with citizens who want to stand up to this regime. Daredevil has changed, and he isn’t just a manifestation of a violent natural self. In saving the girl from the serial killer, he was motivated to protect, not to hurt, and in working with others he is not serving himself.
This is how we become supernatural saints. It is through our baptismal and confirmation covenants. First, we must be born again by water—through the covenant of baptism (John 3:5). In this ordinance we covenant to mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort, to take upon us the name of Christ and serve one another—to work together as a team (Mosiah 18:9). Then, we can become sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost (3 Nephi 27:20). I served a mission in Albania, and in the Albanian language, the phrase “to be sanctified” from that verse was literally translated as “to be made a saint”. In other words, to be “saint-ified” means to receive the Holy Ghost by listening to Him—to yield unto the enticings of the Holy Spirit (Mosiah 3:19), and that is how we become supernatural saints through the grace of Jesus Christ. As we follow His direction, and allow the Holy Ghost to change our choices and behaviors, the Savior strengthens us and we come more than our base, natural selves. We are born again as saints, but saints are not completely different beings—we are still ourselves, we are still the same person, just better versions of us. The Daredevil didn’t need to disappear, he just needed to change.
The change he goes through is the one we all go through—embracing interdependence and working together to change ourselves and the world around us. Just as Matt couldn’t change New York City himself, we don’t build Zion alone. It starts, first, with a partnership with our Savior, and second, a partnership with those around us (Matthew 22:37-40).
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