Wonder
Gazing upon Christ in Advent
One of the greatest gifts I’ve been given is a German Christmas pyramid (Weihnachtspyramide). See the wooden wonders below:
My mom gave us the one with two levels. The bottom level has Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus in the center, and the 3 magi travel in a circle around the holy family. On the second level are 3 angels, trumpeting the good news out to the world. A friend gave us a smaller one, too. Here’s a picture:
Both are an absolute delight to watch. It’s mesmerizing. The best part is when you turn off all of the lights and look at the ceiling. The shadows cast from the rotating fan blades make the most beautiful pattern on the ceiling, especially with two of the pyramids going at once.
Since this last Sunday, the first day of Advent, we have lit them a couple of evenings to watch them together. Liam, our older foster son, loses his mind every time with delight. Martina, our more composed 16-year-old exchange student, has told us it’s “amazing”. We all gather around in wonder. It’s a surprisingly simple experience. It would feel cheap to call it entertaining. You just watch the same movement over and over, much like watching a fire, although this is more repetitive. It would be too cheap to call it entertainment. It’s wonder. Beauty is churning, drawing our gaze in to focus on Jesus and the light.
I love Advent and Christmas because they call us to wonder. In Advent, we recognize and feel the darkness of our world. As the literal darkness and cold of winter creep in, we feel all the more how tired we and our weary world are. And in that dreary landscape, we look to the light and focus on it in wonder.
It was just about a month ago that Catherine and I took in a newborn foster son. We are now in the thick of sleep deprivation and feeling entirely spread too thin. Yet, no matter how crushing life feels, how busy we are, it has not yet been impossible to gaze on his face in wonder. Indeed, it’s been a refuge within the chaos to delight and dote on him. So it is, and ever more so, with Christ. Gaze in your hearts on that most holy infant in rapture and wonder, friends.
“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing. O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!”
- “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” by Edmund Sears.