Wonder

And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. 

But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. — Luke 2:18-19

Wonder: A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.

Wonder.

Have you noticed as life ages, our childlike wonder dims? It doesn’t matter whether one is a person of the Christian faith or not; wonder fades and lingers in our youthful memories of past Christmases.

Last Sunday, in our Sunday morning small group, we discussed wonder. We listened to a Christmas song by Kenny Loggins. In his beautiful Christmas song “December,” Loggins longs to capture the childlike wonder he once had.  “Once upon a dream,” sings Loggins, “he knows with all his heart that wonder is coming,” where Loggins reflects on the wonder he once had as a young boy at Christmas. By the song’s ending, “And the Autumn’s ashes,” Loggins still believes in the message of Christmas.

I noticed my loss of wonder the last two holiday seasons watching my young granddaughters visit The Polar Express at Union Station, Santa, decorating our house and listening to them excitedly talk about their Christmas school plays. The wonder of the holiday season brimming in their eyes, minds, and their energy while I, like the boy in The Polar Express story, try to rediscover enchantment.

In his famous sermon “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis warns the faithful of the evil enchantment of worldliness grounded only in natural happiness and philosophies, which disenchant. Disenchantment separates the divine from our inherent wonder where we long for the beyond. Worldliness wants to convince us Earth is our only home.[1] Death is final.

Lewis felt we could be drawn into this “Negative Spirituality.” Meaning we intellectualize our faith and separate it from its beauty, joy, and vibrancy. Gary Shelby writes, “Lewis gives us a way of living out the faith that is joyful and full of vitality — as God intended it to be. [God] bids us wonder at what the nature of God must have been to create this [beauty and delight]. And He invites us to imagine what it might mean to live eternally in the presence of this God.”[2]

In Luke 2, God bids us wonder in Luke’s narrative of the Shepards and Mary’s stories. God invites us into the Nativity story overflowing with inherent wonder and enchantment and has faith lessons of waiting, listening, seeing, and acting.

The Shepards kept watch over their sheep in quiet solitude (v.8) while Mary later treasured it all within her heart and pondered what all of it meant. (v.19) These are quiet activities of solitude and introspection instead of our haste during the most commercial time of the year, where schedules overflow with activity. There is a centering of one’s soul when one waits and ponders.

Then in seeing and hearing the Angels praise the Glory of God (verse 10-14), the Shepards acted on this Good News, “Let us now go.” (v. 15) The Shepards shared the Good News to the people they encountered “who wondered at the things which were told them.” (v.18) In the act of wonder, the Shepards, and those who heard the message, spread the Good News. God came down to His creation enfleshed as a baby, as our Savior, which is Christ the Lord. So they listened, they saw, and they acted.

We, too, need to Wait. Listen. See. And, finally, Act.

This Advent season, please spend time in wonder and joy, immersed in the beauty of the season. With newness and vitality, embrace the wonder, mystery, and beauty of your faith, and then share the Good News to others, knowing that God’s heavenly wonders are the “secret signature of each soul.”[3]  Merry Christmas!

[1]C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Speeches (New York: HarperCollins, 1949), 31-32.

[2]Gary S. Shelby, Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality: C.S. Lewis and Incarnational Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019), 13.

[3] Ibid, 32.