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Wonder
Luke 2:8-18
December 12, 1971
John M. Buchanan

it was a very long time ago: in fact It was a long time between when it
happened and when it got written down, probably around 50 years. A man by
the name of Luke, a gentile by birth, was one of the earliest Christian writers,
and penned a two volume work sometime around 50 A.D. - perhaps later. The
first part goes under his name, The Gospel according to Luke. The second is
known in the canon of the New Testament as The Acts of the Apostles. When he
wrote his work he had four basic sources of information: the two existing
accounts written a few years earlier by Mark and then Matthew, a thrid source
which existed in the first century but has since been lost, known in scholarly
circles simply as "Q": and finally, oral tradition - the stories about Jesus
that existed at the time and were transmitted verbally tn Christian circles.

The story of the shepherds is peculiar only to Luke, and we deduce that
it was one of those stories In the oral tradition, because neither Mark nor
Matthew mentions It. In any case, it is an intriguing and beautiful story,
probably the favorite account of the birth, and the subject of countless carols,
pictures and beloved Christmas traditions.

It is an intriguing story to me because it is a tale of fear, astonishment,
surprise, literally "holy terror", and because - all things considered - if
is a most unlikely Story. Why, after all, did God, in his Infinite wisdom,
chose to announce the birth of his Son to them? Why this band of rough, rude,
uneducated, poor, dirty, shepherds? Why dispatch the "multitude of heavenly
hosts" to men who didn't even know good music? Wouldn't it really have made
more sense to have had the announcement heralded from a roof top in the city -
or in the court of Herod - or at least on a street corner where someone could
hear it and testify to its authenticity? The timing would have been perfect -
what with Bethlehem bulging with people home to be counted.

Did you ever wonder why the shepherds were the first, and among the only

men to know? | have, and it occurs to me that it ts because they, not in spite

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of their commoness and meanness and ignorance, but because of it, are wiser
and more sensitive to reality than people who outranked thom in all social,
i economic and intellectual categories: that perhaps they, alone had the ability
to.wonder - that is; to bad. tes eternal significance in the common and familiar,
_ tf occurs to me that whatever it was that transpired on that windy hillside, it
might never have been noticed had it happened in Herod's court or on a busy
street corner. | am (tri pued by the idea that the birth of Jesus Christ was
revealed to and celebrated by two radically different types of people i.e. the
very wise, those astrologer scholars from the East who were very perceptive
in a mysterious way, and the lowly shepherds, who were perceptive in a way that
was berieath - or at least - remote from all of, their contemporaries.

The premise of this sermon is that Luke is saying something important
in telling tiie Shaphetd's Senin that they were sensitive to God's coming
among meh and could celebrate that fact because they had the ability "to wonder":
and that Christmas is for those who, today, have that. ability.

Now, what are we talking about? What is the ability to wonder? Children
have -it; In God's providence we seem to be .born with the capacity to be surprised
and delighted with things as they are: the capacity to inspect, touch,
discover and celebrate common objects - that is, to experience wonder. But
most of us grow out of that, unfortunately. And it is my suggestion that we
need to grow back into it.

(The following three categories of Wonder are taken from _Apo for
Wonder, Sam Keen)

According to a theologian who has written a whole book on the subject,
people experience wonder on a number of different levels and in a number of
different ways. | found three of them very helpful and would tike to share
them with you.

First, ontological wonder. Ontological, like demythologize, existettial

and the German Welfanschaung, is a very good word to know and use if you want

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to impress a group of ministers or philosophy professors. Unfortunately, there
are none of either in our midst this morning. Yet, ontotogical is a good word,
and it means literally the study or Investigation of the fact that things are.

Generally, two types of poople think ontological ly. Philosophers and child-
ren. Paul Tillich, perhaps the greatest theologian of this era, defined
ontology which was the whole basis of his. system of thought in this deceptively
simple littic statement: "Viewed from the standpoint of non-being, being fs
a mystery." That's the kind of thought that philosophers think, But it's also
the kind of thought that pops up in the mind of a child who asks, innocently,
“why is therea world." In fact, professor Tillich used to say that three year
olds think ontologically, until we knock if out of them.

Another illustration: one time Lucy was ranting and raving about her lack
of good fortune, nobody loved her, ovorything was going wrongly, and she con-
cluded by saying, "Il wish | had never been born." To which Charlie Brown
replied, after a reflective silence, "Why, the theological Implications of that
are staggering."

That's ontology - to reflect on the fact that | am: ‘that a tree is: that
the world is: that the universe is. One professor of Philosophy suggests
that a student should begin, not by reading the works of Aristotie or Emmanuel
Kant, but by picking up a rock, any old rock will do; feeling it, looking at
it, observing if - and reflecting on the fact that the rock is.

Two kinds of minds can think ontologically: two kinds of minds can wonder
at the fact that an object exists: the very simple and the very profound. And
if we are to grow back into wonder we need to start here.

The second kind of wonder experience has to do with the sensational, the
spectacular, the unexpected and unique. The man who has never wondered at
the existence of a rock, may be moved to wonder at a big pile of thom - say
Mt. Everest. The man who never reflected on the mystery of water coming from

his kitchen faucet - may be moved to an experience of wonder by Niagra Falls.

The man who never stood alone under a night sky and wondered at what he saw

up there, may be moved io an experience of wonder by a spectacular picture from

the lunar surface. Ray Bradbury put it this way: "It is @ good thing to renew
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our sense of wonder. Space travel of all of us again." (Ibid p. 23) But not

all of us, really. The ability to wonder has been so repressed in some people
that a televised lunar landing is regarded only as an (ncohven tent interkahiae
of the soar operas: or a trip to the sea shore - as an chpartuntty to play
Bingo on the Boardwalk with the ocean in back of you and the starry heavens
above. | know of nothing sadder than the person so insensitive that even a
world full of the spectacular cannot induce wonder.

Third, wonder and the familiar. tn the book | cited earlier, the author
suggests that, “A mature sense of wonder does not need the constant titillation
of the sensational to keep it alive." (Ibid p. 23) And it is In this direction
“that we need to move if we are to grow back into wonder: from ontolegy to sen-
sational and then back to: the common, the familiar,the everyday.

Robert Hudnut, in his book “Surprised by God" includes this little
vignette, "A western meadowlark is staking out my office. |! can work through
cars and telephones and typewriters. But | cannot work through one bird
Saniag * (p. 115)

What does it for you?) What common thing inspires you to a sense of wonder?
For me it happens when, during early morning coffee a blue jay comes to the
feeder: - when | listen to a Bach fugue or a Beethoven Symphony: or when I'm
hungry and a hamburger suddenly tastes better than anything I've ever eaten or’
when I'm in my car and | see a first grader racing home from school, full speed
hau’, coat half open, papers flying: or when | see a sleeping child and can't
help but reflect on the fact that: the child is, and is mine.

what does it for you? To be open to wonder: to be able to experience
wonder in the familiar, common stuff of life, is to sense the mystery of life;

it is to begin to sense that thero is a depth, an order, a meaning to life not

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always evident in the nature of things; it is to begin to grow back into that
ability of the Shepherds.

There is probably no better illustration than human birth itself. It
happens daily. It can be adequately explained. We know why it happens and
how it happens. And yet for some men, myself among them, the event of human
_ birth produces as much wonder and awe and reverence as it did for primitive
men - who had no idea what was happening. There is something awesome, and
mysterious and beautiful and literally wonder-ful, in that moment when "nobody
becomes a somebody."

The premise of this sermon, stated some time ago, was that Christmas is
for those who can experience a sense of wonder. A secondary premise is that
all of us have that ability, but that most of us have lost if.

We lose our childlike ability to wonder for two reasons, | believe. First,
we find ourselves, consciously a unconsciously, caught up in a pseudo scientific
mentality. We live in a technologically oriented culture that dictates that
there is a neat and concise explanation for everything, and that the sole arbiter
of truth is whether or not it can be-expressed in a nsthelewicds equation or a
chemical formula. ! said a pseudo-scientific mentality, because men of science
ordinarily don't think this way. It's us - the laymen - who are so enamored
with LPTs PE TaRCS that we become deluded into the assumption that a fact
is not a fact until it can be weighed, measured and categorized. |

One eminent scientist put things in perspective with this comment: "We
should be so wise if we could really understand a worm." Scientists seem to
sense, quicker than most of us, the mystery of the created order. But aie
laymen, find it comforting to put too much faith in their abilities - a faith
they are quick to assert is wrongly placed. Consider the common faith in
America that the physician - the one who knows al! about us - cannot fail.
Consider the distress and horror and panick ~- when a Doctor makes a mistake,

or worse yet when he says "I! don't know what's wrong."

| think part of the reason we lose our sense of wonder ts that we put too
much trust in science - too much confidence in the dubious assertion that al!
things can be explained. Albert Einstein, in much quoted words, said it this :
way: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is
+he source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder, and stand wrapped in awe, IS as good as
dead: his eyes are closed."

| think it is difficult to experience wonder, in the second place, because
of our busyness. I'm coming to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with
most of us that a little siostng down wouldn't remedy. We fill our schedules
so’ full that there Is time for little else than meetings, engagements, comm i t-
ments, and travel time between. Paricularly at Christmas. We've made a fettish
‘out of boing busy. We complain at the same time that Christmas sneaks up on
us: we aren't in the spirit yet: ‘we exprees horror at the thought that it's
only 13 days away, as if it were the day of our execution. And the reason
is that we're so busy preparing for it, we have no time to celebrate it: no
time to reflect on it: no time to experience wonder.

The birth of Jesus Christ is addressed to our ability to wonder. On what
other level can we deal with it: Almighty God, creator of the universe, come
down to be born the child of a peasant maid? How else, really, to deal with
+his incredible suggestion that God walked among us in Jesus Christ, that he
died for us, and that he is eternally for us?

"Sometimes it causes me to tremble" the spiritual confesses. And an old
American folk song, popularized by John Jacob Niles says it in a way. reminscent
of the Shepherds: "I wonder as | wander out under the sky: how Jesus the
savior came for to die: for poor ornry péopte like you and like I: | wonder
as | wander out under the sky."

| have a child in my home who, when | hold him and turn’on a tight, Is

amazed and surprised and delighted. He experiences wonder. !'m going to le*

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1 commend it to you.