What Man Dared not Dream

Santa.
The culmination of what we need in a hero.
The fulfillment of our desires.
And … the betrayal of our meager expectations.

What? you say.
Let me explain. You see, Santa can't provide what we really need. For one thing, he's only around once a year. When December's requests become February payments, Santa's left the mall. And should July find us ill or October find us alone we can't go to his chair for comfort-it's still empty.

You'd think we could do better. You'd think that over six centuries we'd develop a hero who'd resolve those fears. But we can't. We give it the best we can, every benefit of every doubt, every supernatural strength, and, for a brief shining moment we have the hero we need-the king who can deliver Camelot. But then the truth leaks and fact surfaces amidst the fiction and the chinks in the armor are seen.

And we realize that the heroes, as noble as they may have been, as courageous as they were, were conceived in the same stained society as you and I.

Except one.

There was one who claimed to come from a different place.

Those who saw him-really saw him-knew there was something different.
At his touch blind beggars saw.
At his embrace empty lives filled with vision.
During his final week he summarized his claims with one question.
Speaking of himself he asked his disciples, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” (Matthew 22:42)
It's the ultimate question of the Christ: Whose son is he?
Is he the son of God or the sum of our dreams?
Is he the force of creation or a figment of our imagination?
When we ask that question about Santa, the answer is the culmination of our desires.
A depiction of our fondest dreams.
Not so when we ask it about Jesus.
For no one could ever dream a person as incredible as he is.
The idea that a virgin would be selected by God to bear himself ….
The notion that God would don a scalp and toes and two eyes ….
It's too incredible.
Too revolutionary.

We would never create such a Savior.
We aren't that daring.
But God did what we wouldn't dare dream.
He did what we couldn't imagine.
He became a man so we could trust him.
He became a sacrifice so we could know him.
And he defeated death so we could follow him.

from And the Angels Were Silent, Copyright 2004 Max Lucado