The Christian faith must ever fill us with a sense of wonder that it is true. One of the many sad passages in the autobiography of Charles Darwin concerns his growing lack of interest for things like poetry and music. He wrote: ‘The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.’ He used to love Shakespeare, and, oddly enough, took a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost with him on his five-year round-the-world voyage on the Beagle (1831-1836). Scenery captivated him, but there is something disproportionate about one who began his career by writing on barnacles, and ended it by writing on earthworms. When we reject the revelation of God in Christ, we lose much, including a sense of wonder.
The Song of Moses declares: ‘Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?’ (Ex.15:11) Everything about God’s person and works is wondrous and, in an appropriate way, strange. The heavens declare His majesty (Ps.8:1-4; 19:1-6); His testimonies are wonderful (Ps.119:129); indeed, His works, even the creation of the child in the womb, are wonderful, and the Psalmist knows that very well (ps.139:14). The Psalmist does not just write about God; he is filled with awe at Him: ‘On the glorious splendour of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works I will meditate’ (Ps.145:5).
If this was true before the incarnation of the Son of God, it becomes even more so while the fullness of deity dwelt bodily on this earth. At His birth He is said to be Immanuel (God with us), and Gentiles come to worship Him (Matt.2:1-12). An angel tells Mary that her Son will be the Son of the Most High whose kingdom will be forever (Luke 1:32-33) – a message which is, in effect, repeated by angels to shepherds in their fields one night (Luke 2:10-14).
Yet He was laid in a food trough for animals, and He grew up to be the Son of Man who had no place to rest His head. He is the king of a kingdom which will know no end, but when people try to make Him king, Jesus withdrew to the mountain by Himself (John 6:15). At His crucifixion, He could have saved Himself (Matt.26:53; John 19:10-11) but He went voluntarily to the death that His Father had marked out for Him. As Bernard of Clairvaux commented: ‘When He was sought to be made a king, He escaped; but when He was sought to the cross, He freely yielded Himself.’ Even at the resurrection, the King is not acclaimed, but met with distress, disappointment, and unbelief. Strange the incarnation; strange the death; and strange the resurrection. Wondrous love! ‘See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God’ (1 John 3:1).
Tertullian famously delighted in these paradoxes: ‘God’s Son was crucified – this is not a matter for shame, because it is a disgrace; and God’s Son has died – this is credible because it is a foolishness; and he was buried and is risen – this is certain, because it is impossible.’ In his own inimitable way, Tertullian was saying that God’s plan seems so strange to us that only He could have devised it; and it is wondrous because, despite all odds, it is true. To the unbeliever, this is not wondrous but irrelevant or mystifying. And that is the experience of us all, until the Holy Spirit fills us with wonder. Dorothy Greenwell spoke of how the contemplation of all this affected her:
That He should leave His place on high,
And come for sinful man to die,
You count it strange? – so once did I,
Before I knew my Saviour.
Elizabeth Clephane confessed ‘two wonders’: ‘the wonders of His glorious love, and my own worthlessness.’ There are spiritual wonders that Christless eyes do not see. Above the barnacles and the earthworms, there is the wonder of a holy and gracious God.
Peter Barnes