I grew up with the word Advent and all the rituals of the church that came along with it. Advent was a part of our Christmas tradition with candlelit wreaths, homemade paper chainlink countdowns, and pieces of chocolate hidden behind secret calendar doors just waiting to be unlocked and devoured. As a child, I am confident my main focus, however, centered around Christmas morning when my brothers and I would wait, somewhat impatiently, on the landing of the steps while our parents prepared the video camera.  For me, every day of the Advent season led to the moment when my dad would say, “Come on down and see if Santa came while you were sleeping.” All the waiting and anticipation, and then—poof—the day came and went.  

Fast forward to today, and once again, we embark on what can quickly become a dizzying season. Yet every year, I vow to myself that I will savor the season (yes, I mean it this time).  I will be present and experience it fully.  I will not let myself get wrapped up in a string of chaos.  I am going to be wholeheartedly amazed at the reason for the season. I refuse to let the days fly by.  I will be fully engaged this Advent season.  

But friends, admittedly, each year passes with a similar outcome: I do not pause. I do not savor every moment. I grasp at the season, but before I can catch my breath, it is January 1st, and the decorations will soon be carefully boxed and placed away in storage.  It’s then that I will say to myself, “Next Christmas.  Next year, surely, I will get it right.”  

I am likely not the only one who has experienced this. I imagine you, reading this on your phone or sitting at your desk, understand these feelings, too. You get swept up in the hustle and bustle while time does not slow down. The minutes on the clock continue to tick away. Tick-tock-tick-tock. If you’re anything like me, you end up feeling exhausted and breathing a sigh of relief when the “poof” comes and it is all said and done.  

But by golly, may I never lose the sense of wonder that is the sweet babe in the feeding trough.  Mark Sorensen describes this sense of wonder in his Advent devotional, The Wonder of It All. He explains, “When I speak of wonder, I am talking about true, unbridled, uninhibited, straight-out, slack-jawed awe and wonder.” Sorensen continues, “Perhaps it’s time to rediscover the wonder focused within the Advent story.” ¹ He declares it not just a wonderful story but a “wonder-filled” story.  

Truth be told, I have heard the Christmas story repeatedly for forty-six years, but this year, perhaps because of my longing, it has landed differently. Let me explain.  

I unboxed our family nativity (Trans-Siberian Orchestra playing in the background), and I carefully placed each figurine in its proper place. As I reverently unwrapped baby Jesus from his bubble wrap, my spirit was nudged by the realization that I had not created space to be wonder-FILLED.  There I was, kneeling in front of the makeshift stable with its decades-old hand painted ceramic figurines when tears began to fill my eyes. I started to pray, Lord God, forgive me.  Forgive my blindness to the wonder of Your Son wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger. Forgive me for falling prey to the familiarity of the Christmas narrative and neglecting its majesty.   

I ask you and myself, with something so fantastic as the incarnation of Jesus, how can we lose our sense of awe and wonder? After all, we read the incredible news in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  

I want you to do me a favor.  Pause here and consider the astonishing truth: The Word became flesh.  

The Word became flesh. 

Yes, He came breathing the same air we breathe into His lungs. Moreover, Jesus literally “pitched His tent” to dwell among His people, calling us back to the wilderness days when God, in His tent, tabernacled among the people, even though they could not see Him. But listen, Jesus—the Son of the living God, God in the flesh—could be seen, heard, and touched. He is “one with the father” (John 10:30). God in human form. He was in the beginning before creation. He did the creating (Col. 1:16). He is God. Can you even stand it? To be sure, the Lord Jesus Christ did not have His beginning in a rugged wooden food box that held hay for barn animals in a small town called Bethlehem.  Friends, He is the eternal Son of the living God.  He, with the Father and the Spirit, has always been. Yet He took a body—a tangible, human body (Hebrews 10:5).  A body that would only traverse this earth for thirty-three and a half years, but what an impact the God-man would make. Amen?! What a body! What a Savior! 

So, how do we recapture and maintain our sense of wonder? How do we live it out? We make space for King Jesus.  We celebrate what He has already done (the Good News) and wait expectantly for Him as we have since the beginning. Do you realize we assume the same posture as people did in the beginning? Think about the song Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. For years and years, the people had heard of the coming of the Messiah, and they longed for the Savior. Don’t you just long for the Savior? The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Lord’s coming, and they waited. “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). A vulnerable infant boy arrived to fulfill prophecies and affirm the hope of so many. And today, we continue to sing with great expectation, O Come Emmanuel, as our Lord Jesus Christ's second arrival is even still…yet to come. The miracle of the Incarnation is as relevant for us today as it was for the people of the Judean countryside nearly two thousand years ago.   

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, may you be wonder-FILLED as you ponder how the grace of God broke into the world on that first Christmas.  Ushering in the dawn of redeeming grace, joy burst forth!  

I pray you will experience an unbridled, uninhibited, and straight-out slack-jawed Advent season.   

Soli Deo Gloria! 

Mark Sorensen, The Wonder of It All. An Advent Reader. (Seedbed Publishing, 2024), xi.