Would You Enter a Different Reality?

I watch my son build a Lego city. A round parking garage takes shape. High rises sprout around the city with various roof top designs. One triangular, one tall and spiky, one with a fly through. A park is installed in the middle of the city, which sits alongside a riverfront.

We talk about the city. Add various Lego shaped blocks to building tops. He adds some Lego people. The city grows. It looks believable. But does it look believable enough to join the world?

Would you want to stop your current life and live in a Lego City?  How about a Lego movie? Lego chicken legs and plastic white coffee cups anyone? Maybe try a hard slice of Lego pizza?

Most of us do not want to live in a world created by ourselves or others. A movie set. A miniature doll house. A comic book. Disney World. All these created worlds have limitations and drawbacks. No world created by man is as good or better than our own world. Yet, Jesus came and lived in his created world, not as God, but as a man.

He came to live in a world with many limitations he was not used to. Gravity, air, laws of nature, time constraints, pain and suffering, illness, death, sin, decay, childhood and aging, war and hate. These things do not exist in his world—a world so perfect we can’t even begin to imagine. He came to this world not only to experience all those limitations, but to experience what it was like to be human. To be one of his created beings going through all the stages of life, including birth and death.

And not just for a few weeks, or days, but for thirty some years he lived as a human in this once perfect world he had created. He experienced all the emotions of a human. He saw first-hand how man had changed his world for the worse, how his animals were treated, how man degraded and regarded other humans. He saw the laws humans put upon other humans. Noticed those living in excess and poverty. He personally experienced the sinful world and understood how deeply we needed his salvation. Heard the creation groaning for change.

We cannot say that he does not know what it is like to be a human. To live as a child under the rule of parents, a man under the rule of government. To learn to eat with utensils, to be potty trained, to do chores, learn to read,. He saw loved ones die; experienced hate and anger, love, and fear; was kind to those who mistreated him, experienced pain and cruelty; knew life and its problems and routine in so many ways. He felt every emotion, yet never sinned.

So as Christmas moves closer and we celebrate this time where Jesus came to earth as a baby, let’s think about how remarkable it really was for a creator to join and live among his creation. To experience all the normal limitations, we live with daily.

And if you are wondering if you are loved. I mean truly loved by your creator, think about what he did for you by doing the unthinkable — by coming into this imperfect world as a human. Think about how he truly knows what it is to be a human and live with problems amid the consequences of sin.

Think anything you might tell him will shock him. He has seen it all. Heard it all.

He lived in a family and community. He had neighbors. He knows joy and sorrow, despair and beauty, bickering and love. He lived on earth so he could be our brother; our advocate; our savior.  He joined us in this beautiful but messy journey called life so he could better understand us, better serve us, and better love us.

He came into this different world, this different reality, for you.