In the Meantime: Be Amazed

(A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent based on Isaiah 7:10-16 & Matthew 1:18-25)

The key to having a legitimate experience with the Christ of Christmas may be to make this admission: “I don’t understand.”

That is because the human tendency is to think that in understanding something we have placed ourselves in a position to control and domesticate and use it for our own purposes.

On the other hand, you can stand in awe of something that you don’t understand. You can stand amazed in the presence of something that you don’t understand. Here is a paradox: in the case of Christmas, it is when you admit that you don’t understand it that you put yourself in a position to get it.

Indeed, there may be no admission that is more central to the life of faith than this one: “I don’t understand.” Wonder and amazement are prerequisite to faith.

There are so many things about the coming of the Son of God into this world that I cannot understand. With due respect to everyone here today, I doubt that you understand, either.

You can’t understand a virginal conception—but you can stand in wonder and amazement of the Savior who was so conceived. And you can “get” him—when you believe.

In the words of Philip Yancey,

The events of Christmas point inescapably to what seems like an oxymoron: a humble God. The God who came to earth came not in a raging whirlwind nor in a devouring fire. Unimaginably, the Maker of all things shrank down, down, down, so small as to become an ovum, a single fertilized egg barely visible to the naked eye, an egg that would divide and redivide until a fetus took shape, enlarging cell by cell inside a nervous teenager. [Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), p. 36]

It’s too amazing to understand—but it’s amazing enough to cause you to stand in awe and then to believe.

You can’t understand the preexistent Son of God being born as a little, messy, squirming baby—but you can stand in wonder and amazement of the child who was born that way. And you can “get” him—when you believe.

As Brennan Manning put it, “God entered into our world not with the crushing impact of unbearable glory, but in the way of weakness, vulnerability and need. On a wintry night in an obscure cave, the infant Jesus was a humble, naked, helpless God who allowed us to get close to him.” [Brennan Manning, “Shipwrecked at the Stable,” in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001), p. 187]

It’s too amazing to understand—but it’s amazing enough to cause you to stand in awe and then to believe.

You can’t understand the Son of God being born to two ordinary, common folks—but you can stand in wonder and amazement of the Savior who was so born. And you can “get” him—when you believe.

God entered our world not by coming out of the sky in clouds of glory but by becoming a little baby. He came not to the palace of the king or to the mansions of the rich—but to a poor working-class couple.

It’s too amazing to understand—but it’s amazing enough to cause you to stand in awe and then to believe.

You can’t understand the Messiah having a feed trough for a bed—but you can stand in wonder and amazement of the Messiah who was laid there. And you can “get” him—when you believe.

God entered our world not by coming into the places of comfort and power but rather by coming to the best simple place that his simple parents could improvise for him. When God made his way into the world he came not to folks who had it made but rather to folks who just had to make do.

It’s too amazing to understand—but it’s amazing enough to cause you to stand in awe and then to believe.

You certainly can’t understand a God who would love us so much that he would go so far to make himself available to us and thereby to show his love to us—but you can stand in wonder and amazement of such love. And you can “get” it—when you believe.

Listen to Brennan Manning again:

Do you think you could contain Niagara Falls in a teacup?
Is there anyone in our midst who pretends to understand the awesome love in the heart of the Abba of Jesus that inspired, motivated and brought about Christmas? The shipwrecked at the stable kneel in the presence of mystery. [Manning, p. 187]

Can we understand all of these Christmas truths? No. Can we explain them? No. But can we stand in awe and wonder before them? Yes. Can we believe in the Savior whose story they tell? Yes. Can the world of that first Christmas break into the world in which you are living at this Christmas? Yes.

That’s what happened to Imogene Herdman. Most of you have read or watched her story in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. Imogene and her brothers and sisters had never heard the story of Jesus. They went to church one Sunday because a schoolmate had exaggerated about the vast amounts of sweets that were doled out at Sunday School. There they heard about auditions for the children’s Christmas pageant. So, they muscled their way into the starring roles, with Imogene securing the part of Mary. The details of it all boggled the Herdmans’ minds. It’s more than an adult mind can grasp, after all, much less the mind of a child who hasn’t grown up with the story. At the end of the pageant, though, something of the truth of it all breaks in on Imogene. I think that something of the love of it all breaks in on her. And there she sits—still Imogene with her tough life and dirty face—with tears running down her face.

Did she understand it? No. Did she stand in awe at it and in amazement over it? Yes. Did she “get” it? Yes.

Perhaps we can think of it in these ways.

We are so small—so God became small in order that in our smallness we might know him.

We are so human—so God became human in order that in our humanness we might know him.

We suffer so—so God suffered in order that in our suffering we might know him.

Here in the meantime, in this time between the Advents, there is so much that we need to do. But at the beginning of it all, at the heart of it all, lies wonder, awe, and amazement.

So…be amazed—and believe. Take the leap of faith and believe in the God who came to our world in such simple but yet such amazing and paradoxical ways.

Be amazed—and repent. Turn from your life of self-centeredness and wandering and turn to the God who loves you that much.

Be amazed—and obey. Listen to God. Respond to God. Trust as he wants you to trust. Follow like he wants you to follow. Know his love like he wants you to know it.

But please, just let it come over you. Let the amazing grace and unfathomable love of God wash over you. Let the miracle of it all overwhelm you.

And be amazed.