The Christmas season always causes joyful delight. It isn’t the gift giving, the trees and ornaments, the homemade taffy, the carols, the lights, or even the neighbors’ addition of a Ferris wheel filled with snowmen. I enjoy those things, but they don’t fill my heart with love, awe, and wonder.
Jesus does that, has done that since I was a little girl. Maybe a part of the magic has to do with childhood traditions; my mom taught my brothers and me that Christmas meant the coming of baby Jesus. Every day, one of us pulled out a new character from the cloth nativity set — my mom, in her wisdom, removing the porcelain one from the game of play — and hoped and hoped and hoped to pick baby Jesus. He always waited until Christmas Eve to make his appearance.
As I’ve gotten older, I find awe and wonder in Mary. She comes as across as a thinker, which I love. The Christmas story in Luke 2 says she treasures and ponders things in her heart. She contemplates and puzzles, lets things rest until they become clear. She also memorizes and remembers. When she bursts into her praise song, God’s words pour forth.
This year, though, I find myself drawn to the shepherds. They’re going about their business and watching the sheep when an angel of the Lord “suddenly appears.” The glory of the Lord fills the night sky and surrounds these men wandering the hills outside Bethlehem.
In my mind they fall to their knees or onto their faces. Luke 2 says they’re “terribly frightened.” God, through the angel, speaks into the fear. He tells them to not be afraid for good news of great joy has come and will be found with the baby lying in a manger.
God’s glory seems to shine brighter at the conclusion of the words. An entire host of heavenly beings shine onto the shepherds and their sheep. The angels praise God, then disappear from view, leaving the shepherds blinking in the absence of glory-light.
No delays with the shepherds; they say, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us! (exclamation point added)” God reveals himself to the shepherds, and they respond by leaving their sheep — their livelihood — and hurrying to Bethlehem. They scour the little town, perhaps no difficult feat, until they find Mary and Joseph and Jesus.
The shepherds then share God’s words with the townspeople, and the people marvel at it. The shepherds do, too, but their awe and wonder shifts in the moment of sight: they return to their sheep, “glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.”
God’s arrival changes the shepherds, just as it does Mary, Joseph, Zacharias, and Elizabeth. It continues its forward, impossible-to-stop progression. The wise men ditch King Herod to come worship the newborn king. Anna and Simeon bless Jesus and prophesy in the temple. The rabbis marvel at the boy Jesus who speaks with such wisdom. Later, the disciples transform, though it takes Jesus going to the cross and rising from the dead for the metamorphosis to take full effect.
Those stories fill me with awe and wonder. The thing with God, though, is that the stories don’t stop. He continues to changes hearts and minds, including mine. His creation contains great beauty and marvels. Every day, not just Christmas or Easter, holds the potential for awe and wonder if I will but still to see it.
Image: don Tommaso (Creative Commons)