A Glimpse of Wonder
The wonder of Christmas is One who visits from our far off home country
A View
The Christmas Story is a story of wonder. In most of our retellings, we include angelic appearances to Mary and then to Joseph and then to the shepherds and then to the little drummer boy (jk). We have Magi from the East following a divinely ordained star to find the One who is to rule. But there is one wondrous element that is often left out of most of our retellings - John the Baptist leaping in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary, expectant with the Savior, enters Elizabeth’s home.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:39-45)
The miraculously expectant Elizabeth, together with the embryonic prophet to be in her womb, inspired by the Holy Spirit, respond with wonder in recognition of the wondrous presence of the Savior. This small miracle of wonder is followed by Mary’s song - the Magnificat - a song of wonder, gratitude, humility, with glory and praise to God. Here is wonder that isn’t outwardly impressive, or even noticeable by anyone else. Wonder, in other words, as we may experience it - when or if we do experience it.
O star of wonder, star of light,
star with royal beauty bright,
westward leading, still proceeding,
guide us to thy perfect light. (We Three Kings)
It is wonder found in an unlikely or unexpected place - like Andy Defresne and his friend Red found in Shawshank Prison. Andy locks himself in the warden’s office to broadcast an opera (The Marriage of Figaro) across the whole prison - an offense for which he pays with solitary confinement. It leads to wonder in an unlikely place, as Red narrates -
I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singin’ about … I like to think they were singin’ about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away … and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.
Otis “Red” Redding - The Shawshank Redemption
Wonder may help prisoners feel free or make the rich and powerful feel small. If we are paying attention, we will find it in unexpected places - and miss it if we aren’t. A sunrise, an infant, some intrusion of the beautiful, the spiritual, the transcendent into our expected routine. But what is it? Whatever it is, wonder involves some measure of longing or yearning. C.S. Lewis expressed this as seeking union with something from which we are separated - a glimpse of, as Lewis puts it, “our own far off country”:
In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you …
C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory
We might say that the sunrise or the opera at Shawshank is a glimpse of this far off country. Lewis would say it is a glimpse of the doorway to this country left ajar for just a moment.
… it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing … they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory
Ultimately, it is the King of this country to whom we long for union. In his Confessions, Augustine speaks of this as our restless heart searching for our home.
O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you
Augustine - Confessions
The leap of our restless heart when we catch a glimpse of this country might serve as a working definition for wonder.
For those who believe the spiritual and the transcendent are only a fond wish - or consist only in the physical sensations that are advantageous to evolutionary biology, these experiences of wonder are hard to explain or are explained away. Alan Lightman is an author and MIT trained scientist who is open to experiences that he calls spiritual. But to acknowledge the spiritual, he defines it as simply an experience that produces certain feelings in him.
Many people associate spirituality with an all-powerful, intentional, and supernatural God. I respect such beliefs. But my concept of spirituality does not require them. It is my view that all human experiences, including spirituality, are compatible with a fully scientific view of the world, even while some are not reducible to zeros and ones. I believe not only that these experiences are rooted in material atoms and molecules but also that they can be explained in terms of the forces of Darwinian evolution.
Alan Lightman - The Atlantic - The Human Brain is Wired for Romance
This fits neither my experience or my understanding of the world. Lightman does not see his view as bleak, but it is a much, much smaller view of humanity and of spirituality and of wonder than the tradition I am in holds. I have no doubt that our molecules and material atoms are involved - but I think they are what are affected by wonder, not what causes it. This confusion of cause and effect is not something that can be proven or disproven scientifically. All we can do is observe the molecules and atoms - we can’t see the far off country with our instruments. It seems the King of that country does not wish it. Wonder is not so easily explained.
Joy to the World, The Lord has Come …
Christmas celebrates the visit of the Prince of our far off yet home country.
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear …
(O Come, O Come, Emmanuel)
Long lay the world, in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth …
(O Holy Night)
… Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth … but it is more than a feeling, more than evolutionary biology, more than atoms and molecules, it is the reality of the appearance of the One who frees us from our lonely exile here.
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door … we cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory
The Prince of our far off yet home country comes to us and there is wonder in the glimpse of Him. This is where the wonder of the Christmas story is located - the angel, and the angels, and the star, and finally Jesus … all visits from our home yet far off country, along with the invitation to live there.
But it is easy, amidst the molecules and atoms of our Christmas routines, to miss the invitation. So much about our world conspires to insulate us from this invitation and from wonder more generally.
… technology is the knack of arranging the world so that we don’t have to experience it. Max Frisch
Arranging the world so that we don’t have to experience it also arranges the world so that we miss wonder. Technology, business, pressures, lists, conflicted relationships, family disappointments … all can be part of our effort to arrange the Christmas Story so we don’t have to experience it - so we don’t experience the wonder of it. That has often been the case with me.
In a year filled with disappointments and challenges, it would be easy for me to so arrange the Christmas Story again. We may not be in Shawshank, but many of us have had a tough year. And so we, all the more, need wonder.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Luke 2:4-20
Merry Christmas
Links
How the Human Brain is Wired for Romance - Alan Lightman - The Atlantic
The Weight of Glory - C.S. Lewis
The Virtue of Noticing - L.M. Sacasas - Comment
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A beautiful reading to begin Christmas Eve.