Ever thought about how weird it is that God became a baby? 🤔 Not just any baby, but a fetus? 👶

If God could choose any way to enter the world, why start as a tiny cluster of cells? 🧬 Why not just appear as a fully-grown adult, like a superhero dropping from the sky? ⚡️

God chose to experience everything humans do, starting from the very beginning. ✨

And it wasn't glamorous – Jesus wasn't born in a hospital with pain meds and doctors. 🏥

His mom Mary gave birth in what was probably a cave, and then they had to run away to Egypt because a king wanted to kill him. 🏃‍♀️ Pretty messy start for the Son of God, right? 😅

There's this old church teacher named Tertullian who said something profound: "That which Christ did not assume, he did not redeem." 📚

In other words, God became everything that we might think is too messy or shameful, because he wanted to save all of it – not just the nice, clean parts of being human. ❤️

Some people struggle with this idea. They'd rather imagine Jesus as some kind of spiritual being who never really had a physical body (that's called Gnosticism). 👻 It's easier to think of him floating above all the mess of being human. But that misses the whole point. 🤷‍♂️

Jesus didn't come as Superman in a cape. 🦸‍♂️ Instead, he chose to be vulnerable – first as a fetus, then as a baby, and ultimately as someone who died on a cross. ✝️

This tells us something about what real faith looks like: it's not perfect or Instagram-worthy. 📱 Real faith is messy, just like real churches are messy – because they're full of real people with real problems. 💫

The amazing thing is that God promises to be present in all this mess. 🙏 He doesn't say "Clean yourself up first."

Instead, he invites you to church where he can remind you over and over again who you are (his child! 👋) and what he's done for you. ✨

Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Content Executive.

Contributor Deaconess Emma Heinz serves as the Registrar of Higher Things.

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