Jesus on the Playground

We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all - all but the sin. So let's walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

Hebrews 4:15,16

Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—Jesus also became flesh and blood by being born in human form... Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus to be in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God.

Hebrews 2:14&17

Watching a couple of kids play around this morning made me just a bit nostalgic of childhood. Playing ring-a-ring-a-roses and "catcher" (tag) as school-age kids in Kaduna with my siblings and neighbors was always a blast, really something to look forward to. Yeah, I miss the free-spirited nature of those young years. But I was there and I'm grateful for the experience.

As we celebrate Christ's birth this season, it brings to the fore that Jesus was here. He lived like us, worked like us, played like us. Imagine that - Jesus on the playground! Okay, I know it's kind of hard to picture Jesus singing silly songs and crying when he smudged his knee, particularly since he was teaching professors before he was a teenager, but I believe he did all those things, perhaps just as well as any of us. I'm thinking it's important that our idea of Christ changes from just a middle-aged bearded melancholic to include his childhood and youth. A new perspective can help us see the truth clearly - that Jesus was just like us, but without sin. He laughed, cried, ate, drank, swam, worked and did just about everything expected of a man in his culture. All man, as much as he was God.

Scripture says it was necessary for God to experience manhood so that he could identify with us in our weaknesses and know just at what points we need help. It is this experience that qualifies him to serve as High Priest in all God's house and to represent us before the Just Father. Hebrews 5 says "every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it's like from his own experience."

So as we pause this Christmas to remember the birth and youth of Jesus, thank God that he knows just about everything that we go through, and then some. And that he's gentle in dealing with us.

Have a lovely Christmas.

With love, Doosuur