‘The Lego Movie 2’ (SPOILER ALERT!) gives us a new character, Rex Dangervest, who appears to be cool, tough and ready to be a friend to Emmet when he sets out on his dangerous mission to rescue his friends who have been abducted by alien forces from another world…
It turns out, with more than a passing reference to the ‘Back to the Future’ films, that Rex is a future incarnation of Emmet: a tough, grown-up guy whi has faced the harsh realities of life that isn’t awesome and who is, as a result, bitter, resentful, cynical and heartless.
Emmet is ultimately appalled at this vision of what being ‘grown-up’ means. So often chided for being idealistic and unrealistic, he comes to see that strength is not synonymous with violence and that hope and optimism do not have to be discarded to be a hero.
The world urges us to grow up and put away childish things by focussing on ourselves, protecting ourselves from hurt, removing everything that can wound us and building a hard exterior shell which takes pleasure in domination. Jesus offers us a different vision of adult maturity. He tells us that if we want to be great, we have to become servants (Mark 10:42), that the first will be last and the last first (Matt 19:30), that the path greatness is through humility, sacrifice, consideration of others before ourselves and unconditional love.
Lucy later apologises to Emmet for wanting to change him, for failing to see the strength in positive faith. Jesus urged us to become like little children if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:3) Openness, vulnerability and positive enthusiasm are not characteristics meant to be discarded as we age. Even though our world is far from awesome, we still need to pursue faith, hope and love. Don’t be distracted from God’s estimation of maturity as you seek to grow up. Maturity looks like Jesus… and in many ways, it looks a lot like Emmet too.