The Wonders of His Love

We hear a lot about wonder during this "Winter Wonderland" time of year.

Maybe you experienced wonder as a child around Christmastime. When I was a boy, I would sit in my family's living room on the corner of our old gray couch, with all the lights off except the ones on the Christmas tree, gazing at the familiar-looking ornaments. My heart was filled with dreams—not merely about presents under the tree, but about what my life would become. Somehow Christmas brought out the wonder in me.

Albert Einstein once wrote, "The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. He who knows it not, can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle."

Not long ago, I talked with a man who became a Christian late in life. Christmas means a lot to him now that he's a believer. He said, "I never want to get over the wide-eyed-ness of my faith."

I like that phrase, "the wide-eyed-ness of my faith." In his book, *Can Man Live Without God?, *Ravi Zacharias asks what people are looking for when they say, "I want to find meaning in life." He suggests that a meaningful life has four essential ingredients: wonder, truth, love, and security. Zacharias points out that all four of these ingredients are found in Jesus Christ, who alone brings life meaning in its fullest sense.

Perhaps that's why the familiar carol, "Joy to the World," includes a refrain about "the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love." How long has it been since you took a wide-eyed look at the wonders of his love?

It's a wonder Christ came at all. Think of the most pleasant place you've ever been—a picnic by a wooded lake, a walk on a beach at sunset, a family dinner at your grandparents' house. Now think of the worst place you're ever been—a hospital room where you experienced pain, a battlefield where you served in a war, a place where you felt humiliated or rejected. Would you willingly choose to leave your most pleasant place to go to that unpleasant place? In a feeble way, this illustrates what it must have been like for Christ, the eternal Word, to leave the comforts and security of Heaven for the restoration and wounds of Earth.

It's a wonder Christ came the way he did. Jesus didn't choose the path of luxury. His virgin birth took place, not in a hospital surrounded by medical professionals and sterile equipment, but in a stable surrounded by none but his loving parents and some wide-eyed shepherds who visited his makeshift maternity ward outside Bethlehem's inn. He wasn't surrounded by the smells of spiced cider, warm cookies, and candle wax, but by the odors of hay and animal sweat—his newborn body wrapped in the ragged warmth of swaddling clothes. Many parents would be pretty reluctant to allow a newborn baby even to spend a one-hour shift in a manger at one of today's live nativities. But God was willing to send his Son away to a manger with no crib for a bed.

It's a wonder he came to the people he did. No Scribes and Pharisees gathered at the manger. No political leaders, sports heroes, or big-name entertainers. Just a carpenter, his virgin wife-to-be, and some shepherds.

Perhaps most of all, it's a wonder he came to do what he did. In Luke 2:11, the angel used three lofty titles for the newborn baby: Savior, Christ, Lord. Jesus came to save us from sin, to be the promised Messiah, and to be our Lord. The baby in the manger grew up to be the Christ of the cross and to rise and reign as King of Kings.

Don't miss the wonders of his love.