Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is a pastor and a former NASA engineer. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Iowa with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has pondering the mysteries of light
Christmas and Lego are tightly related for me. I grew up playing with Lego and I had one set of Grandparents that would get me a new Lego set for Christmas every year, at least for a few years. I still have most of the Lego I played with as a kid and have added much more as an adult. My kids love Lego and it is a highlight of their Christmas whenever it shows up in a present.
But as a pastor I have found another connection between Lego and Christmas. It came in the form of an analogy one year when I was trying to figure out how to help the kids of my church appreciate the Incarnation. Naturally I turned to Lego. Here we go.
Imagine creating a whole world of Lego. You have dozens of characters; you have cities, countryside, space exploration, Hogwarts and of course a Star Wars galaxy area. Now imagine that it all comes to life. This isn’t too hard if you’ve seen one of the many Lego movies out there. Imagine that the Lego people are alive and that they live in the world you created. Now, put yourself in that world for a moment. Everything is made of plastic. Your body is pretty constrained in its ability to move. Most of the world exists in ninety-degree corners. There are very few curves. There are only a couple dozen colors and they never blend together. There are sharp lines distinguishing one thing from another. This is the world you live in and it is good. You couldn’t imagine anything being different.
Alright, come back and reprise your role of creator again. Imagine that your purpose in creating this Lego world wasn’t just so that the Lego people could have normal, mundane lives; your goal was to have a relationship with these people. How would you do that? You could try talking to them. Maybe you can just hover your face above their world and shout “I love you guys” to them. I’m sure that would make about as much sense to them as the first chapter of Ezekiel does to us. Your message of love would be terrifyingly other-worldly. The Lego people who saw your face and heard your voice would most certainly worship you, but that worship would easily become something they do simply to stave off their fear of you. Certainly it would be difficult for them to love that terrifying voice.
If you really wanted to communicate your love for them you would have a find a different medium of communication. You would have to meet them where they are. You would have to find a way to communicate to them on their level, in their own language and idiom. To do this, you would have to become like them. You would have to enter their world. You would have to become a Lego person.
This is what God did in the Incarnation. He took on flesh and became one of us. He did this because He loves us and He wants us to know the depths of His love. But consider what happened. Consider what He gave up. If you were to enter the Lego world you would have to become plastic. You would be constrained to moving like a Lego person: your head could swivel, your arms and legs could rotate at one joint each. Your existence would be dramatically diminished. But you would be like the rest of the Lego people; and for this reason you would be able to communicate your love to them. And you would be able to be in relationship with them.
This is what Jesus did, but to the nth degree. He gave up heaven, perfection, perfectly close union with the Trinity, and he accepted a new way of being. He took on flesh. He was born in poverty to a disgraced family. He did this out of love for us. And it was a permanent change. Jesus remained incarnate (in the flesh) after the resurrection. He only returned to the right hand of the Father in his bodily form, which means that the reduction he accepted at the Incarnation was permanent.
So if Lego is a part of your Christmas - which seems likely considering the dearth of sets available at the stores right now - I would invite you to spend some time creating a world and imagining what it would be like to love the inhabitants of that world so much, that you would take on their nature and live among them. That is the love we celebrate at Christmas.