Awe And Wonder
Luke 1-2
Last Sunday, we asked the question, “What Are We Celebrating?” and I just wanted to help us focus on the right thing or the Right Person for Christmas. And I said my prayer for us this Christmas is that we stay focused on the Most Important Point (MIP) of Christmas.
The God of all Creation – the Maker of Heaven and Earth – the Eternal, All-Existing One was born as a baby.
That is what we are overwhelmed by. That is what we are in awe and wonder about.
Today, I’d like to continue that awe and wonder of the Christmas events. We want to be awestruck by the immenseness of the Christmas story. We want to be left in true wonder at WHO God IS and at what God has done for us in the Christmas story. I pray we can put ourselves in a place to be left in awe and wonder at our God this Christmas.
The God of all Creation – the Eternal, All-Existing One – was born as a baby in a stable in order to bring the gift of eternal life to us.
I pray we would be struck with awe and wonder at that incredible truth.
And I think we can do that by kind of putting ourselves in the Christmas story. Not like Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” but by putting ourselves in the Christmas story of the living Word of God.
And it would have to start with God announcing the birth of Jesus to Mary, wouldn’t it? If we could place ourselves in first-century Judaism, we would be in awe and wonder that a person like Mary would even be involved in this story. Mary and Joseph were poor, unknown, uneducated, peasant nobodies from a despised town in the Galilee. Mary was a young, engaged teenager – absolutely common in every way.
But, when the Angel Gabriel came to announce that God was coming to earth as a man, Gabriel flew right past Jerusalem; he flew right past the Temple; he flew right past the religious elite, and right past those who were important in society. And God sent Gabriel straight to this young, nobody, peasant girl in a despised, good-for-nothing town – far, far away from Jerusalem and the religious system.
The greatest news ever proclaimed in Israel came to the humblest of all its people.
Can we try to join Mary in her awe and wonder when the Angel Gabriel brought this message to her? Can we try to “stand beside her” and feel just some of what she feels?
Luke 1:26–29 (NLT)
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy (that’s John the Baptist’s mother), God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a (despised) village in Galilee, (far from ‘Religious Jerusalem’)
27 to a (common) virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. (and a poor, struggling carpenter)
28 Gabriel (The Lord’s “Announcing Angel”) appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
Listen to this verse from the Amplified Bible.
Luke 1:29 (AMP)
29 But when she saw him (the angel), she was greatly troubled and disturbed and confused at what he said and kept revolving in her mind what such a greeting might mean.
Mary was overcome with awe and wonder – with some genuine fear mixed in, and she hadn’t even heard the message yet.
Luke 1:30-33 (NLT)
30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! (but not by anything she had done)(then – here comes the message)
31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. (there’s The Name – Jesus – Yah-Shua = Yahweh is Salvation)
32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David.
33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
This is too big to even begin to grasp. It’s bigger than Mary can grasp, and it’s really bigger than we can grasp, but we’ve minimized it. We’ve made it small enough to fit into a nativity scene. We’ve made it small enough to package up and make cultural. We can't even begin to grasp what this means. …the Son of the Most High… given the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever (that’s an eternal reign); his Kingdom will never end!”
“Mary, you are going to bear the MESSIAH – the Savior of the World – the Eternal King of all Creation.”
And, so, in shock, Mary asks the only question she could think of.
Luke 1:34-35 (NLT)
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.
Mary, the Son of God, is coming to earth to save his people from their sins. And he is going to be a baby, and you are going to bear him and be his mother. He is going to place all of his divine abilities under the direction of the Father, and he is going to be a one hundred percent very real baby – only sinless – and he is going to need his mother.
The awe and wonder of the Creator, subjecting himself to his own creation, is beyond our understanding. He became the creation in the lowest, most humble way. It’s unfathomable! Because we see God too much like a “big” us. And we don’t understand how far down that is for God to come from who he is to being a very, very real baby. God, himself, would become a baby and would need all the care we needed.
God would grow like we grew
God would experience what we experienced
God would learn like we learned – only without sin
It’s really hard to imagine, but when God became a baby, he was God, but he set aside that divinity (he didn’t stop being God). He set aside the attributes of the divinity. He’s not laying there in the manger calling the shots. The Father is calling the shots, and Jesus is a baby, and he is living the same way you and I lived as babies – but he’s God.
The Apostle Paul says,
1 Timothy 3:16 (NLT)
16 Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed (made visible) in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.
And when we take the time to try to embrace WHO God IS, we are left in awe and wonder just as Mary and Joseph were.
And then, God orchestrated the events to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to fulfill the well-known prophecy. But the little town was packed to overflowing, with no room at the inn (any of them). And so, in a stable – not in a clean, perfectly staged nativity scene – in a stable looking a smelling like a stable would today, in a stable God came into the world he created as a baby. My only prayer today is that you would sense more of the awe, more of the immensity of that.
The ground was cold and hard. The smell of manure and pungent straw mixed with the pain, and sweat, and blood of birth, as a young girl and an apprehensive carpenter, figured out how to have a baby in the midst of the animal’s world.
And when the God of the Universe took his first gasp of air as a newborn baby, all of Heaven was in awe and wonder as Mary and Joseph were figuring out how to wrap God in some old strips of cloth and were laying him in the feeding trough.
The awe and wonder of Heaven broke through the veil. You know the veil is thin between us and Heaven. It’s not far away. Heaven is very close, and it’s a very thin veil that separates us from the Heavenly realm.
And at this moment, Heaven just exploded onto the lowly shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. Heaven’s announcement came to a few lowly, despised shepherds first. Shepherds were despised by the “good and respectable people.” Shepherds were considered “thieves” to some extent. The only people lower than the shepherds on the social ladder were the lepers. But just like God chose a lowly girl from a despised town, heaven broke open to a group of despised shepherds.
Luke 2:8–14 (NLT)
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.
9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, (awe and wonder, with some fear mixed in – just like Mary)
10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.
11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host (too many to number) of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
Heaven just crashed into earth to announce the birth of God as a man to a small group of lowly, despised shepherds. It’s the opposite of everything we would think.
Doesn’t it seem like God is trying to say something about how he showed up and about to whom he showed up and chose to be part of his story on earth? That God hasn’t changed.
And you know these shepherds had to be shaking in their awe and wonder as the Heaven’s flashed, and they were suddenly surrounded by the Army of the Heavenly Choir.
R. Kent Hughes (who provided inspiration for this message) says, I think every one of God’s angels was there because this was the most amazing event that had ever happened in the entire universe. I think the heavenly host stretched from horizon to horizon, obscuring the winter constellations. I like to imagine that they radiated golds, pinks, electric blue, hyacinth, and ultraviolet—maybe some were even sparkling.
Awe and wonder brought to you by (what could have been) ALL the Angels in Heaven poured out on a handful of lowly shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem.
And after the Heavenly Army choir returned to Heaven, the shepherds went and found Jesus, and then they became evangelists.
Luke 2:17–19 (NLT)
17 After seeing him (Jesus), the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.
18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, (in awe and wonder)
19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. (in awe and wonder)
Everyone who saw God break through the veil between Heaven and Earth was left in awe and wonder – speechless.
Finally, Luke 2:22 says it was time for the Purification Offering and time to dedicate their baby to the Lord, and so, Mary and Joseph went up to Jerusalem – to the Temple to dedicate Jesus.
And then,
Luke 2:25–33 (NLT)
25 At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him
26 and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.
27 That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required,
28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised.
30 I have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared for all people.
32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
33 Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him.
They were amazed! Mary and Joseph had begun a life of being in perpetual awe and wonder. Can you imagine going through life constantly in awe that GOD is in your midst? Can you imagine going through life constantly in awe that GOD is with you? Are YOU going through life today constantly in awe that God is in your midst – that he is with you?
The same God of awe and wonder is here with us. He is IMMANUEL – he is God WITH US just like he was God with Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds and Simeon. He is the same God, and he is with us in a very real way.
That doesn’t mean your life is going to be in the Bible; you were born too late for that. And there’s not going to be another first Christmas morning. But God who came to earth AS our Savior IS still today, IMMANUEL – GOD WITH US. And this same awe and wonder inspiring God is at work on our lives today.
Are we looking for him? Are we looking for signs of his awe and wonder at work in our lives? He is with you, and he is at work in your life, and if you will look for his awe and wonder in your life, you will see it.
You will see signs of his glory
You will see signs of his power
You will see signs of his love
And when you do, it will leave you in awe and wonder.
Be looking! Be looking for the awe and wonder of God in your life this Christmas, and then respond accordingly!!!
The God of all Creation – the Maker of Heaven and Earth – the Eternal, All-Existing One was born as a baby.
That is what we are overwhelmed by. That is what we are in awe and wonder about.
Today, I’d like to continue that awe and wonder of the Christmas events. We want to be awestruck by the immenseness of the Christmas story. We want to be left in true wonder at WHO God IS and at what God has done for us in the Christmas story. I pray we can put ourselves in a place to be left in awe and wonder at our God this Christmas.
The God of all Creation – the Eternal, All-Existing One – was born as a baby in a stable in order to bring the gift of eternal life to us.
I pray we would be struck with awe and wonder at that incredible truth.
And I think we can do that by kind of putting ourselves in the Christmas story. Not like Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” but by putting ourselves in the Christmas story of the living Word of God.
And it would have to start with God announcing the birth of Jesus to Mary, wouldn’t it? If we could place ourselves in first-century Judaism, we would be in awe and wonder that a person like Mary would even be involved in this story. Mary and Joseph were poor, unknown, uneducated, peasant nobodies from a despised town in the Galilee. Mary was a young, engaged teenager – absolutely common in every way.
But, when the Angel Gabriel came to announce that God was coming to earth as a man, Gabriel flew right past Jerusalem; he flew right past the Temple; he flew right past the religious elite, and right past those who were important in society. And God sent Gabriel straight to this young, nobody, peasant girl in a despised, good-for-nothing town – far, far away from Jerusalem and the religious system.
The greatest news ever proclaimed in Israel came to the humblest of all its people.
Can we try to join Mary in her awe and wonder when the Angel Gabriel brought this message to her? Can we try to “stand beside her” and feel just some of what she feels?
Luke 1:26–29 (NLT)
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy (that’s John the Baptist’s mother), God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a (despised) village in Galilee, (far from ‘Religious Jerusalem’)
27 to a (common) virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. (and a poor, struggling carpenter)
28 Gabriel (The Lord’s “Announcing Angel”) appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
Listen to this verse from the Amplified Bible.
Luke 1:29 (AMP)
29 But when she saw him (the angel), she was greatly troubled and disturbed and confused at what he said and kept revolving in her mind what such a greeting might mean.
Mary was overcome with awe and wonder – with some genuine fear mixed in, and she hadn’t even heard the message yet.
Luke 1:30-33 (NLT)
30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! (but not by anything she had done)(then – here comes the message)
31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. (there’s The Name – Jesus – Yah-Shua = Yahweh is Salvation)
32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David.
33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
This is too big to even begin to grasp. It’s bigger than Mary can grasp, and it’s really bigger than we can grasp, but we’ve minimized it. We’ve made it small enough to fit into a nativity scene. We’ve made it small enough to package up and make cultural. We can't even begin to grasp what this means. …the Son of the Most High… given the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever (that’s an eternal reign); his Kingdom will never end!”
“Mary, you are going to bear the MESSIAH – the Savior of the World – the Eternal King of all Creation.”
And, so, in shock, Mary asks the only question she could think of.
Luke 1:34-35 (NLT)
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.
Mary, the Son of God, is coming to earth to save his people from their sins. And he is going to be a baby, and you are going to bear him and be his mother. He is going to place all of his divine abilities under the direction of the Father, and he is going to be a one hundred percent very real baby – only sinless – and he is going to need his mother.
The awe and wonder of the Creator, subjecting himself to his own creation, is beyond our understanding. He became the creation in the lowest, most humble way. It’s unfathomable! Because we see God too much like a “big” us. And we don’t understand how far down that is for God to come from who he is to being a very, very real baby. God, himself, would become a baby and would need all the care we needed.
God would grow like we grew
God would experience what we experienced
God would learn like we learned – only without sin
It’s really hard to imagine, but when God became a baby, he was God, but he set aside that divinity (he didn’t stop being God). He set aside the attributes of the divinity. He’s not laying there in the manger calling the shots. The Father is calling the shots, and Jesus is a baby, and he is living the same way you and I lived as babies – but he’s God.
The Apostle Paul says,
1 Timothy 3:16 (NLT)
16 Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed (made visible) in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.
And when we take the time to try to embrace WHO God IS, we are left in awe and wonder just as Mary and Joseph were.
And then, God orchestrated the events to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to fulfill the well-known prophecy. But the little town was packed to overflowing, with no room at the inn (any of them). And so, in a stable – not in a clean, perfectly staged nativity scene – in a stable looking a smelling like a stable would today, in a stable God came into the world he created as a baby. My only prayer today is that you would sense more of the awe, more of the immensity of that.
The ground was cold and hard. The smell of manure and pungent straw mixed with the pain, and sweat, and blood of birth, as a young girl and an apprehensive carpenter, figured out how to have a baby in the midst of the animal’s world.
And when the God of the Universe took his first gasp of air as a newborn baby, all of Heaven was in awe and wonder as Mary and Joseph were figuring out how to wrap God in some old strips of cloth and were laying him in the feeding trough.
The awe and wonder of Heaven broke through the veil. You know the veil is thin between us and Heaven. It’s not far away. Heaven is very close, and it’s a very thin veil that separates us from the Heavenly realm.
And at this moment, Heaven just exploded onto the lowly shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. Heaven’s announcement came to a few lowly, despised shepherds first. Shepherds were despised by the “good and respectable people.” Shepherds were considered “thieves” to some extent. The only people lower than the shepherds on the social ladder were the lepers. But just like God chose a lowly girl from a despised town, heaven broke open to a group of despised shepherds.
Luke 2:8–14 (NLT)
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.
9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, (awe and wonder, with some fear mixed in – just like Mary)
10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.
11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host (too many to number) of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
Heaven just crashed into earth to announce the birth of God as a man to a small group of lowly, despised shepherds. It’s the opposite of everything we would think.
Doesn’t it seem like God is trying to say something about how he showed up and about to whom he showed up and chose to be part of his story on earth? That God hasn’t changed.
And you know these shepherds had to be shaking in their awe and wonder as the Heaven’s flashed, and they were suddenly surrounded by the Army of the Heavenly Choir.
R. Kent Hughes (who provided inspiration for this message) says, I think every one of God’s angels was there because this was the most amazing event that had ever happened in the entire universe. I think the heavenly host stretched from horizon to horizon, obscuring the winter constellations. I like to imagine that they radiated golds, pinks, electric blue, hyacinth, and ultraviolet—maybe some were even sparkling.
Awe and wonder brought to you by (what could have been) ALL the Angels in Heaven poured out on a handful of lowly shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem.
And after the Heavenly Army choir returned to Heaven, the shepherds went and found Jesus, and then they became evangelists.
Luke 2:17–19 (NLT)
17 After seeing him (Jesus), the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.
18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, (in awe and wonder)
19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. (in awe and wonder)
Everyone who saw God break through the veil between Heaven and Earth was left in awe and wonder – speechless.
Finally, Luke 2:22 says it was time for the Purification Offering and time to dedicate their baby to the Lord, and so, Mary and Joseph went up to Jerusalem – to the Temple to dedicate Jesus.
And then,
Luke 2:25–33 (NLT)
25 At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him
26 and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.
27 That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required,
28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised.
30 I have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared for all people.
32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
33 Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him.
They were amazed! Mary and Joseph had begun a life of being in perpetual awe and wonder. Can you imagine going through life constantly in awe that GOD is in your midst? Can you imagine going through life constantly in awe that GOD is with you? Are YOU going through life today constantly in awe that God is in your midst – that he is with you?
The same God of awe and wonder is here with us. He is IMMANUEL – he is God WITH US just like he was God with Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds and Simeon. He is the same God, and he is with us in a very real way.
That doesn’t mean your life is going to be in the Bible; you were born too late for that. And there’s not going to be another first Christmas morning. But God who came to earth AS our Savior IS still today, IMMANUEL – GOD WITH US. And this same awe and wonder inspiring God is at work on our lives today.
Are we looking for him? Are we looking for signs of his awe and wonder at work in our lives? He is with you, and he is at work in your life, and if you will look for his awe and wonder in your life, you will see it.
You will see signs of his glory
You will see signs of his power
You will see signs of his love
And when you do, it will leave you in awe and wonder.
Be looking! Be looking for the awe and wonder of God in your life this Christmas, and then respond accordingly!!!