Trout
December 20th 2007, 11:27 PM
Charlotte, Christmas, and Wonder
By ApologiaNick
Many of you on Tweb know that I recently moved to Charlotte to study at Southern Evangelical Seminary along with Rayado. (If you didn’t know, you do now.) For me, this has been a major change in my life, but it has been one I have handled well. The reality of it sometimes sinks in though which leads me to think about wonder, especially around the holiday season.
It was late at night when Rayado had already gone to his room for bed when I was locking the doors and turning out the lights. At one point, it was completely dark, but I guess he was still reading as I saw light coming out from under his door as I was fumbling around and thought “There’s light coming from Rayado’s room.”
I had always known the reality that I was there, but that hit me. Yeah. It is his room. Yes. I really am here. I really am in Charlotte. Where I work, I see the message over the door that says I am in Charlotte. I experience the Seminary as a reality often. This is indeed a whole new world.
Now what I am saying does not apply to Charlotte alone of course. It applies to so many other things we can think of. You can think of being in love and seeing the world in a new light. Christians can think of conversion and how everything was made new. There are just events that happen that change your perspective.
What happens is that you begin to see things as they are. Instead of seeing Charlotte as simply another town now, I see it as my town and think of the wonder that I am here. I look out the door of my patio and see people driving on the road nearby and think that I really am in Charlotte.
As Christians, we should be in awe and wonder of the world. We should be like children in a playground ready to try every new thing. Children are natural at this after all. Give a baby even a set of keys and watch him handle it in wonder. Their hands are held out ready to grasp the world. As they get older, how many times do we hear children asking “Why?”
Aristotle said that man by nature desires to know. Man wants to know what this world is. He wants to experience its wonder. However, it seems in our day and age, wonder is dead. This is indeed a travesty for I believe that lack of wonder is one of the great downfalls of modern man.
We live in an age where we have tried to explain all. Now I do not think there is anything wrong in this. I think it’s great that we know why things happen. The problem is we have reduced why things happen to purely mechanics. When X happens, Y results. Now that is the case, but what if we put God behind it? What if we say “Why does he do it that way?”
The other great danger is that we will do this to ourselves as well. We will begin to look at ourselves as simply machines. Why do you love your children? Is that mechanical? What about the activity between husband and wife? Is that mechanical? It would be like explaining sexuality by only telling how it is done without any passion or emotion. Without the “Why” behind it, it is simply an action.
If we rediscover the wonder that is there though, we can look at the world through whole new eyes. I believe this is why in the Screwtape Letters, Screwtape tells Wormwood that pleasure is the ground of the enemy (Who is God in this case) and that the forces of Hell have not produced one pleasure but can only twist the pleasures the enemy has made.
Why do you enjoy something? Let us take a beautiful work of art. If you begin to see it as beautiful, you must step back. You must say “Ah! I see it as beautiful, but that is only in my mind! There cannot be any real beauty there!” If you see loving your children as good, you must step back again and say “It is only good in my mind. I cannot see it as really good. It is only my opinion.”
Once you see things as they are, and see them showing the nature of God and his beauty and goodness present in the world, then you will draw close to him. As soon as you admit a reality of beauty and goodness and other such qualities outside of yourself, then you are entering into the territory of God. There must not be wonder. There must not be amazement. These things aren’t really wonderful in themselves. You just think they are wonderful. The Christian can easily say though that such things truly are wonderful, beautiful, and good, for he believes in a God of wonder, beauty, and goodness.
So what does this have to do with Christmas?
Wonder needs to be rediscovered in Christmas also. This is a Christmas I am truly looking forward to more than any other. What’s on my Christmas list? Not much. In fact, it’s mainly household items. I just look forward to going back to my family and having my Mom tackle me in a hug and hold my cat again and get to tell friends and family about all the adventures I’ve had. The older I get, the more this becomes the important reality to me.
Yet let us not forget that if we speak about wonder, we need to remember the great wonder that is Christmas. A text like John 1:14 should stop us dead in our tracks. The Word became flesh. That which was divine came and took on the nature of that which is human. Heaven came down to Earth. God made his presence known in the most unique way ever.
If this is true, and I believe it is, it should change everything about the way we believe. I would think even the non-Christian would say that if God came down, everything is different. If they don’t, then I wonder about the kind of god they think about. Not only did he come, he came in the way we wouldn’t expect.
I would expect God to come in a great fanfare. I would expect the heavens to be ripped asunder. I would expect angels to blow numerous trumpets for all the world to hear. That’s not what happened though. He came and lived in the womb of a peasant girl for nine months before being born in a lowly stable and lived a life in a small town with poor parents.
Why? Because God loves us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. (John 3:16) The God of all creation loves us that much and came and did this for us. This is something to celebrate indeed. Let us celebrate this Christmas in a humble attitude of wonder and amazement over the love of God.
And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, everyone!”
By ApologiaNick
Many of you on Tweb know that I recently moved to Charlotte to study at Southern Evangelical Seminary along with Rayado. (If you didn’t know, you do now.) For me, this has been a major change in my life, but it has been one I have handled well. The reality of it sometimes sinks in though which leads me to think about wonder, especially around the holiday season.
It was late at night when Rayado had already gone to his room for bed when I was locking the doors and turning out the lights. At one point, it was completely dark, but I guess he was still reading as I saw light coming out from under his door as I was fumbling around and thought “There’s light coming from Rayado’s room.”
I had always known the reality that I was there, but that hit me. Yeah. It is his room. Yes. I really am here. I really am in Charlotte. Where I work, I see the message over the door that says I am in Charlotte. I experience the Seminary as a reality often. This is indeed a whole new world.
Now what I am saying does not apply to Charlotte alone of course. It applies to so many other things we can think of. You can think of being in love and seeing the world in a new light. Christians can think of conversion and how everything was made new. There are just events that happen that change your perspective.
What happens is that you begin to see things as they are. Instead of seeing Charlotte as simply another town now, I see it as my town and think of the wonder that I am here. I look out the door of my patio and see people driving on the road nearby and think that I really am in Charlotte.
As Christians, we should be in awe and wonder of the world. We should be like children in a playground ready to try every new thing. Children are natural at this after all. Give a baby even a set of keys and watch him handle it in wonder. Their hands are held out ready to grasp the world. As they get older, how many times do we hear children asking “Why?”
Aristotle said that man by nature desires to know. Man wants to know what this world is. He wants to experience its wonder. However, it seems in our day and age, wonder is dead. This is indeed a travesty for I believe that lack of wonder is one of the great downfalls of modern man.
We live in an age where we have tried to explain all. Now I do not think there is anything wrong in this. I think it’s great that we know why things happen. The problem is we have reduced why things happen to purely mechanics. When X happens, Y results. Now that is the case, but what if we put God behind it? What if we say “Why does he do it that way?”
The other great danger is that we will do this to ourselves as well. We will begin to look at ourselves as simply machines. Why do you love your children? Is that mechanical? What about the activity between husband and wife? Is that mechanical? It would be like explaining sexuality by only telling how it is done without any passion or emotion. Without the “Why” behind it, it is simply an action.
If we rediscover the wonder that is there though, we can look at the world through whole new eyes. I believe this is why in the Screwtape Letters, Screwtape tells Wormwood that pleasure is the ground of the enemy (Who is God in this case) and that the forces of Hell have not produced one pleasure but can only twist the pleasures the enemy has made.
Why do you enjoy something? Let us take a beautiful work of art. If you begin to see it as beautiful, you must step back. You must say “Ah! I see it as beautiful, but that is only in my mind! There cannot be any real beauty there!” If you see loving your children as good, you must step back again and say “It is only good in my mind. I cannot see it as really good. It is only my opinion.”
Once you see things as they are, and see them showing the nature of God and his beauty and goodness present in the world, then you will draw close to him. As soon as you admit a reality of beauty and goodness and other such qualities outside of yourself, then you are entering into the territory of God. There must not be wonder. There must not be amazement. These things aren’t really wonderful in themselves. You just think they are wonderful. The Christian can easily say though that such things truly are wonderful, beautiful, and good, for he believes in a God of wonder, beauty, and goodness.
So what does this have to do with Christmas?
Wonder needs to be rediscovered in Christmas also. This is a Christmas I am truly looking forward to more than any other. What’s on my Christmas list? Not much. In fact, it’s mainly household items. I just look forward to going back to my family and having my Mom tackle me in a hug and hold my cat again and get to tell friends and family about all the adventures I’ve had. The older I get, the more this becomes the important reality to me.
Yet let us not forget that if we speak about wonder, we need to remember the great wonder that is Christmas. A text like John 1:14 should stop us dead in our tracks. The Word became flesh. That which was divine came and took on the nature of that which is human. Heaven came down to Earth. God made his presence known in the most unique way ever.
If this is true, and I believe it is, it should change everything about the way we believe. I would think even the non-Christian would say that if God came down, everything is different. If they don’t, then I wonder about the kind of god they think about. Not only did he come, he came in the way we wouldn’t expect.
I would expect God to come in a great fanfare. I would expect the heavens to be ripped asunder. I would expect angels to blow numerous trumpets for all the world to hear. That’s not what happened though. He came and lived in the womb of a peasant girl for nine months before being born in a lowly stable and lived a life in a small town with poor parents.
Why? Because God loves us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. (John 3:16) The God of all creation loves us that much and came and did this for us. This is something to celebrate indeed. Let us celebrate this Christmas in a humble attitude of wonder and amazement over the love of God.
And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, everyone!”