As a society we seem to have lost our sense of amazement, of wonder. Sometimes, when I have watched a large aircraft – like a 747- take off, I consider how I may or may not understand the scientific principles of thrust and aerodynamics and lift that can bring this aircraft up off the ground and into the air; but whenever I see one of these large planes actually leave the ground, I am always amazed that something so big and so heavy can actually fly.
That sheer delight at looking around us, at all of the marvels and movements and sights and sounds in our world seems to be reserved to very small children; the simple; the unsophisticated.
And yet, wonder is one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We might know it by other names – awe, or fear of the Lord. But that sense of awe, a truly deep sense of the greatness of the work of God in our own daily existence, is something that perhaps as a people, we tend to diminish, to repress, or even belittle. But wonder can lead to a sense of innocence and purity, which in turn leads to humility, which in itself opens us to a deeper sense of trust that with God all things are possible; and that there is wonder in everything around us; everything is a gift from God.
Sometimes we forget how much we depend on the goodness of God, and how often God has worked in and through our own lives. And when we forget that, we lose that sense of wonder.
A very wise and dear friend once told me, “Grace is remembering; sin is forgetting.”
It sometimes helps us to be ‘put in our place’ to gain a proper perspective, and to approach in humility and gratitude, the truly amazing gifts that God pours out on us, both individually and as a people of faith.
Take for example our first reading, relating how King David wanted to build a temple to house God; the God of the desert who had travelled with the children of Israel, and whose ark containing the law was kept in a tent – David reasoned that if he was the king and lived in a palace, then he would use his royal ‘greatness’ to build something great for God. But it was God, speaking through the prophet Nathan who said to David, ‘you’re forgetting something here…I’m God; I have given you and your people everything that they have; and while you may be a king, you are still one of my creations – what kind of a house could you possibly build for me? What kind of structure could you make that would contain the Almighty – the Eternal – the Creator of All?”
Although well intentioned, the danger in what David proposed was that in building a structure to ‘house’ God or ‘contain’ God, was that – human nature being what it is – there might be a temptation for David to think that he ‘owned’ or could ‘claim’ God; as if somehow humans could control or direct God. What may start as an attitude or gesture of thanksgiving and praise – could just as easily slide into arrogance and pride.
Contrast that attitude with the response of Mary in St. Luke’s Gospel; when told by the angel that, although a virgin, she would conceive and bear God’s Son, she didn’t propose conditions, or bargain with the angel – she didn’t try to constrain God’s action or attempt to place restrictions on how and when God should or could act in her life; her response was simply, “Here I am the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word,”
Mary in her simple, humble response illustrates for each of us, the attitude of trust and thanksgiving that we are all encouraged to adopt in our own spiritual journey; we are invited to deepen our sense of wonder at God’s work in our lives and to see in that how truly everything we have and are is a gift, freely given by a God who holds nothing back in His love for us.
This particular time of year provides us with constant reminders of the giftedness of God’s love in the Incarnation of His Son; it provides us with reminders, particularly in the faces of children, of the wonder and beauty in things that perhaps as we have grown into adults, we have taken for granted and lost a sense of amazement at.
But the season of Advent, particularly these readings, also serves to remind us that even if we have lost that sense of wonder and gratitude at all that God has done for us, it is never too late to recapture it, to revive it; to open our hearts to it. Because as the Angel said to Mary, ‘nothing will be impossible with God”.
Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
Thoughts from Theophilus 