If you’re like me, one of your favorite things about the season of Christmas is to see the awe and wonder in the faces of children. They find this season magical, whether it’s looking at a neighborhood full of beautiful Christmas lights, watching your family’s favorite holiday movie, visiting Santa, or of course finding a bevy of gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. When I was growing up each year my parents took me and my brother into Chicago to see all the unique Christmas displays in the department store windows on Michigan Ave. Our eyes were always wide in wonder at the amazing displays of Christmas cheer.
I’ve been thinking about a Christmas “sense of wonder” in the context of our theme for this school year “Love First” based on Romans 5:8. Specifically I’ve been reflecting on the third stanza of the great Christmas hymn “Joy to the World” where we sing of the “wonders of his love”. I think that’s a great phrase to describe the miracle of Christmas. God’s love for us is wondrous, which the dictionary defines as “to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe”. God chose to love us first through the gift of his son Jesus. And that gift is wondrous – amazing and awesome and even beyond our capacity to completely comprehend.
I want to encourage you this Christmas to revel in a childlike sense of wonder at the perfect love that our God has for us. This sense of wonder comes not from lights or presents or Hollywood movies. Instead, we realize with awe and wonder that the creator of this entire world sent His only son to Earth to be born a baby and live a perfect life, and then die and rise again just for you and me. Let everyone see and hear your sense of wonder as you live a life filled up by the amazing story of Jesus. Merry Christmas!