Many experiences begin with an invitation.
I believe a new sense of wonder does as well. Imagine picking up your mail, sorting through the junk mail, the bills, the magazines you never get around to reading, and then something grabs your attention.
It’s a fancy envelope with a seal over the fold. It’s addressed to you in elegant calligraphy.
While that invitation might make you feel special or excited, it pales in comparison to the invitation we’re all offered at Christmas. At the core of Christmas is this idea we call the Incarnation; God taking on human flesh and coming among his creation. Jesus’ birth at Christmas is the beginning of His invitation to us. His invitation includes so many things, but lately, I’ve been thinking about these three:
1. We’re invited to be known by God as a part of His family.
At the beginning of his gospel, the Apostle John writes, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.”
We can only be born into God’s family through faith in the name of Jesus. It’s like John is saying, “there are no biological children in God’s family; all of God’s kids are adopted.”
In our world, insecurity is pervasive. We feel this insecurity especially during frustrating moments of the holiday season. And, then, there’s the period between Christmas and New Year’s Day, when, after all the hustle and bustle, we often battle a feeling of loneliness.
When we read how Jesus “became human and made his home with us,” we see Him doing for us now what He did for Adam and Eve in the garden - pursuing us, even as we run from Him.
Think about this for a minute...
God created you.
He knows everything about you.
He knows your name.
He came so you could be a part of His eternal family.
While Jesus promised us with His final words, “And be sure of this: I am with you always,” many of us go looking for security and peace in other places and other people. We’ve lost our wonder of being known by God.
Derwin Gray sums this up best when he said, "If Jesus knowing your name is not enough to make you feel significant, everyone knowing your name will never be enough."
2. We can know God’s love through reflecting on what Jesus sacrificed for us.
In Philippians 2, Paul quotes what many scholars believe was an ancient hymn about Jesus. “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”
Can I share a confession? As a pastor, I’ve struggled with Christmas because I felt overly familiar with the story and it all felt hollow. Part of the reason I’m sharing with you how to regain your wonder is because I know how hard it was when I lost mine.
One thing which has awakened my sense of wonder to the incarnation has been these words from author Nancy DeMoss Welgemuth about what Jesus did for you and me:
“He took on our human weaknesses, frailties, limitations:
-the One who never sleeps became tired.
-the Creator of the oceans of water became thirsty.
-the One who fed His people with manna in the wilderness became hungry.
-the One who flung the stars into space slept under the stars.
-the One who inhabited heaven’s ivory palaces was born in a borrowed cattle shed.
-the omniscient God had to learn how to talk and walk.
-the eternal Word of God had to learn how to read.
-the Helper of His people became helpless and dependent.
-the beloved Son of God became the rejected Son of Man."
Pretty incredible, right?
When we think about a God that big and grand, coming near to us, it can be a little scary. Like Adam and Eve, we run from God, hiding from His presence out of shame. But, when we realize it was because of God’s love (“For this is how God so loved the world…”) that He sent Jesus, we can be confident that God isn’t the source of our shame or afraid of our shame. He comes, out of love, so that we might be saved.
I love how author and pastor Scott Sauls describes this, "Only in Jesus are we fully known and fully loved, thoroughly exposed and never rejected."
3. We can know God personally.
John begins his conclusion to the letter that we know as 1 John with these words, “ I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.”
In the Greek language, there are multiple words for “to know." Two of them are gnosis and epignosis. Gnosis is the Greek word used to describe abstract knowledge - knowing information about a subject. "Man, you seem to know a lot about (enter subject here).” That’s gnosis.
Epignosis, however, is used to describe a particular knowledge based upon personal experience. Epignosis is, “I know him. We were texting yesterday, I've been to his house, and I know what he’s worried about right now.”
We often lose our wonder when our knowledge of God shifts from epignosis to gnosis. Wonder never develops if we never go from subject knowledge to personal knowledge. Writer Jonathan Merritt describes the problem this way. “For most people, their goal isn't to know God; it's to know about God."
When I first heard Merritt shares those words, he followed it up with an analogy from my favorite Christmas movie, Elf. In Elf, Buddy the Elf gets super excited when a department store employee announces an upcoming visit from Santa. Buddy shouts, “SANTA! Santa, I KNOW HIM!” Everyone looks at Buddy with a weird face, even as he tries to convince them he really does know Santa.
The excitement of Buddy the Elf isn't because he has all of this knowledge about Santa based upon his study of books or memorization of songs. Buddy is excited because he knows Santa.
Knowing Jesus personally is what truly awakens wonder. There’s a big difference between knowing about Jesus and actually knowing Jesus.
We do not grow closer to Jesus through accumulating knowledge about Him. We grow closer to Jesus through experiencing Him ourselves. If Jesus wanted us to have knowledge of Him, he would have sent a huge set of encyclopedia books or a large PDF document attached to an email. God wanted us to know Him, so He sent Jesus. Wayne Barber notes, “Jesus isn't an object to be studied. He is a person to be worshipped."
Do you know Jesus? Because He is the only source of lasting hope, peace, and wonder in this world.
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Scott Savage is a pastor and a writer. He leads Cornerstone Church in Prescott, Arizona. Scott is married to Dani and they are the parents of three “little savages.” He is the creator of the Free to Forgive course and you can read more of his writing at scottsavagelive.com.
