Over the Christmas hols I’ve been re-reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It is the same beloved copy I’ve owned since childhood, now yellowed with age and dangerously close to falling apart, but I took the risk of turning the pages again after buying a card at a Narnia themed craft fair. I chose one with a lamp-post on the front and left feeling very satisfied with my purchase. ( I will assume that you know how a lamp-post features in the book). The card then flew its way overseas, dropped eventually through a letterbox amidst Christmas cards, to be read at a very precise, ordained moment in time for a God intended purpose. It now has a quiet, miraculous tale all of its own, as it sits somewhere in my friend’s home far away.
God takes a piece of creatively folded paper, sends it across multiple time zones and connects lives with words and the Narnian lamp-post to create wonder…sheer wonder at the potential for all things ordinary to become extraordinary in the hands of God.
Whether we are stepping into 2020 hesitantly or enthusiastically, with optimism or melancholy, full of hope or dread, or a mixture of all of it, life will be full of ordinary things and ordinary moments charged with possibility.
‘Open my eyes so I can see what you show me of your miracle-wonders.’ Psalm 119:18 (MSG)
There are miracle-wonders to be awed by if we have the willingness to be prayerfully attentive to the flow of the Holy Spirit, who shows up with impeccable timing to colour the prosaic with new layers of meaning and beauty that didn’t exist before.
That walk in the park turns into invigorating worship, those radio song lyrics are suddenly prophetic, that actor’s line makes your breath hang suspended in your throat without warning. A text message, a conversation, a meal, a kiss on the cheek, a book, clouds, sunlight, rain, the list is endless! Christmas is God showing up in the ordinary and changing everything and it’s not just a seasonal event.
C S Lewis chose a plain wardrobe for his story. He chose an empty room with dead bluebottles on the window sill and a wardrobe.
‘…they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe. “Nothing there,” said Peter and they all trooped out again - all except Lucy.’ (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe)
Lucy hesitated, simply having an urge to try the wardrobe door. She followed her curiosity that ordinary morning, only to discover a miracle and experience an adventure like no other.
Holy curiosity quickens to wonder.
May this year be full of curiosity and wonder. Wonder at the sheer glory of God who walks closely with us in our normal rhythms and abides deeply with us in our unexpected dissonance.
May we be like the blind men of Matthew 20 who on crying out to Jesus were asked by him, ‘What do you want from me?’ and they said, ‘Master, we want our eyes opened. We want to see!’
And on seeing we will let everyone know that God is blazingly alive among us. (Matthew 15:31 MSG)
