Sunday, December 10, 2023
- Reflection by Rev. Dr. Kristin Johnston Largen
“Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’”
Luke 1:18
Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the great Jewish theologians of the 20th century, once said, “The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.”
I have been thinking about the distinction Heschel makes between belief and wonder. Sometimes, we treat belief as something that we confirm once the truth of an idea or a statement has been proved to us—like Thomas, who refused to credit Jesus’ resurrection until he put his own hands in Jesus’ hands and side. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” we say.
Over and over in the Bible, we see how faithful men and women have their belief in God and in God’s power challenged when what is promised or foretold outpaces the limits of the known, the expected, the true. “You must be joking,” Sarai laughs at God, when she is promised a son. “How can this be,” Mary asks the angel, when he tells her she will bear a child. “Five loaves and two fish can’t feed all these people,” insist the disciples.
And so, too, Zechariah, who basically says, “How can I possibly believe this,” when he, too, is promised a child by Gabriel, and told to name his son John.
Belief, it seems, requires some proof.
Wonder, on the other hand, has no such limitations. Unlike belief, it is a sense, a feeling, an experience that is not prompted by met expectations or demonstrable evidence, but instead flows spontaneously from an extraordinary meeting with the miraculous, an awe-inspiring encounter with the sacred. Wonder comes from the perception that God has drawn near, that the ground on which I stand is holy ground.
Wonder, then, is a most-apt response to this season of Advent, where we wait in eager and confident expectation for the greatest miracle of all, the miracle of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. This miracle is itself enveloped in further miracles: the attentiveness of stable animals; the joyous proclamation of angels; a show-stopping star; and a trio of unlikely visitors.
This Advent season, then, we are invited to pay attention to the many and varied invitations to wonder God sneaks under our doors: an unexpected snowfall; a cherished reunion with friends or family; and countless ordinary small moments of beauty and joy, which, upon close observation, are not ordinary at all, but magnificent traces of God’s great love in our lives.
This Advent season, filled with wonder, let us not say, “how can this be,” but thank you God that it is so!