His Name is Wonderful

– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –

I. An Eternal Light Shining in Darkness

Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 9. We’re gonna be looking just at one part of the verse. In 1858, the great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, called the Prince of Preachers, began a sermon relating an experience in which he stood by the seashore at nighttime while a powerful storm was raging. And the sea and the sky seemed to be competing with each other as to which of them could raise a greater clamor, and the sea was roaring with wave upon wave, crashing down in a mighty tumult. You can picture it in your mind’s eye. But the storm clouds above the sea were answering back with claps of thunder, flashes of lightning. And the stormy seas sought to drown out the claps of thunder, and the thunder would respond with even louder crashes. And Spurgeon, as he stood there and looked, they seemed to battle to a draw. He couldn’t tell which of them was more powerful, it was very dark. It was a dark night, so that the storm clouds were hiding the light of every star. Could not see a single one.

But then suddenly, far away on the horizon, he saw a glimmering light, a silvery light, as if miles away on the water. It was the light of the moon, which snuck down under the clouds in a tiny little tear in the clouds to light the ocean as it was heaving, and he could see not the moon, but he could see the light coming down and just glancing on the water. And Spurgeon, this brought to mind the introduction of the text that you just heard read for us today. More than 26 centuries ago, the Prophet Isaiah was lifted above the storms and darkness of his immediate circumstances to see beyond to a distant future. A light that would someday shine but wasn’t shining yet. And with the supernatural vision of the future that only a true prophet of God could ever have, Isaiah saw the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior into this world. And he wrote of it with these marvelous words. Look at verse 2, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, and those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

Now, the darkness of Isaiah’s day was in some ways very different than the darkness of our day, but in some ways exactly like our own. Now, Isaiah lived seven centuries before Jesus was born, and he prophesied at a time when the northern Kingdom of Israel was threatened by the mighty nation of Assyria. And because of their great wickedness and idolatry, in turning away from the living God to serve idols, God had finally decreed that the northern Kingdom of Israel should come to an end. And in his lifetime, they were taken away in exile by Assyria.

Well, that was the darkness of his day. The politics of our day and the stresses and the struggles of our day are different, but the root issues are still the same: sin and death. That’s the essence of the darkness that we’re talking about today. From the Garden of Eden, God established an insoluble link between sin and death.

He forbade Adam from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and affixed the death penalty to disobedience. From the day you eat of it, you will surely die. And Adam did eat of that tree and brought both himself and all of his descendants under the death penalty. Though he didn’t die immediately, didn’t die that day in the garden, he walked the rest of his life under the shadow of death.

And so do we. Born as descendants of Adam under his original sin, we live all of our lives under the shadow of death, and we would be enslaved to sin and receive the final punishment that we deserve for our sins, not merely physical death, but eternal death and hell, eternal separation from God. “For the wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23. If it were not for the gift of Jesus Christ, and that’s exactly this great light that verse 2 is talking about. 

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light and those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned, and this light is none other than Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. And Isaiah predicted Him in these unforgettable words. Look at verse 6 and 7, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing it, and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

So Christmastime is a time of celebration of this child born, the son who was given, this king who’ll rule for the glory of God. And fully unfolding each phrase of this incredible passage would be a treasure beyond compare. But that’s not what I’m gonna do today. I decided to make my life a little bit easier and yours too. So I’m gonna zero in on just one little phrase. His name will be called Wonderful. That’s what Spurgeon did with it, and I thought that’s a good idea. I think I’m gonna keep it simple. His name will be called Wonderful.

Now, some translations, I think, to some degree, rightly link these eight words in four couplets: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And I’ve noted and then consumed with the fact that there is a beautiful mingling of the human and the divine in these words, some of them very normal, some of them supernatural. The child who would be born, the son who would be given is called Mighty God, that’s enough to blow the circuits right there. How is that even possible? But that’s the essence of the incarnation. A baby born is called Mighty God. 

So, the translations joined the couplets together, and I’m fine with that. The most famous and widespread English translations, the authorized version, commonly known as the King James Version, KJV. And I put a famous little comment in between the first two, Wonderful, Counselor. Not a big fan of the comma, and yet here I am preaching it. But why not slow down? Alright, we’re all busy all the time, and why rush right in? Why not just meditate on this one idea, His name will be called Wonderful? And so, Spurgeon, that’s what he did, he honored the comma so much, he preached two different sermons. Week one, his name will be called Wonderful; week two, His name will be called Counselor. I’m not going to do that, I’m just doing Isaiah 96a and a half.

But I love the simplicity of zeroing in on this, and I’ve marveled in it. Begin with this: His name. His name. This is Jesus Christ. This is the child born to the Virgin Mary. The word name biblically refers to one’s reputation, how he is understood, how he will be perceived and spoken of. It’s a combination of his essential personhood and his achievements, what he has done, his name. And the text makes a prediction because Isaiah saw Jesus seven centuries before he was born. Honestly, his foresight is by faith, it’s the exact same dynamic for us to look back by faith, neither one of us can see him. And both saw by faith, but his was special in that Jesus hadn’t even been born yet, prophetic vision.

And so he predicted his name will be called in the future, and that’s still true for us. The elect from every tribe and language and people and nation worldwide, from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria and to the distant valleys and the islands and the coast lands, and the hill tops where the messengers of the gospel carry that name will find the people who have never heard of his name before. And his name will be called Wonderful by them. So his name. 

And then we have this word, wonderful. Now, there are a lot of words that we use too much, and sometimes we attach them to things that they don’t really deserve to be attached to. We don’t use the word wonderful as much as maybe they did 150 years ago. So I was thinking of a similar word, the word awesome. Awesome. One of my kids turned off a light switch in the room and told me about it and I said, That’s awesome. I was like, What am I saying? It was a minor effort, it was a small achievement, and with this great effort, they flicked the switch down and I said it was awesome. Now, I’ve seen some awesome things on planet Earth, that really wasn’t one of them. 

This word, wonderful, is similarly overused and we attach it to things that really don’t deserve it. Here it’s a great understatement. And honestly, we’re gonna spend eternity finding out how much of an understatement every word is when connected with Jesus. But his name will be called Wonderful, and it carries with it a kind of weight of the miraculous. Like miracle counselor, you almost could say it that way, and it points to Jesus’s supernatural identity that he wouldn’t have been born apart from a miracle of God’s Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. So the Angel Gabriel said in Luke 1:35, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And so the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Only by a miracle could this happen.

We also would think it refers to the river of miracles that flowed through Jesus. No one had ever done or ever has done as many miracles. There were amazing miracles as Jesus did. The apostles worked miracles, it’s true. Others, they worked miracles but the quantity and quality of Jesus’s miracles are different than any other wonder worker there’s ever been.

So in Matthew 4:24, it says, News about him spread all over Syria and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, the paralytics, and He healed them all. He didn’t have any medical specialties, he wasn’t a specialist. He was a generalist. There was no disease he couldn’t cure. Or again, Jesus describing his own ministry to the messengers of John the Baptist. In John the Baptist’s darkest hour when he was in prison, right before he was beheaded. He sent messengers saying, Are you the one who was to come? Or should we expect someone else? Someone else. 

And so Jesus did miracles in front of the messengers and then said, Go back and report to John what you see and hear. The blind received sight, the lame walked, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of me. 

River of miracles. But for our purposes, we can zero in on the word as we usually use it, wonderful relating to our sense or reaction to him. He creates within us a sense of wonder, a sense of awe, a sense of amazement. Now, in Jewish culture, to say someone’s name is character, that man, that was an attribute that characterize them. So Jesus is essentially amazing. There’s something essentially wonderful about Jesus.

Now, I love this three-part division, Jesus deserves to be called Wonderful for what he was in the past, Wonderful for what he is now in the present, and Wonderful for what he will be in the future. And my desire is to rekindle within each one of us by the ministry of the Word, by the Spirit, a sense of wonder in Jesus. It’s very easy for us, like the church at Ephesus, to forsake our first love and to not be so amazed anymore at that, which should still amaze us.

Christmas is a wonderful time. But it’s especially wonderful when you’re around children, their eyes sparkle. I remember when my parents took me to downtown Boston at Christmastime the first time. I don’t remember how old I was, but I’ll never forget it. The lights strung all over the trees in the Boston Common. We went to a very expensive toy store, and my list got really long that evening, I was like, I want that, I want that, I want that. And I was just so filled with wonder at the season, ’cause it was all new to me. And there were some other supernatural things that were part of my childhood that are no longer part of it, ’cause I realized that they were a lie, and I’m not allowed to say what they are because some of you may be saying those kinds of things to your kids, and it’s up to you to tell them the truth.

I circumlocute. But I remember waiting through midnight into the wee hours of the morning to hear certain sounds that I never heard. I also knew that when I was in college, I lost all sense of wonder and all I wanted was a good night’s sleep. So I lost any sense of wonder, the amazement of what was under the tree. I set all that aside. That should never happen to us when it comes to Jesus, that we should lose our sense of wonder and amazement at who he is.

Now you’re gonna spend all eternity doing it, but let’s do a little of it now. And I think this three-part outline is beautiful, it exactly parallels Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. So let’s just link the two together, Jesus is Wonderful yesterday, Wonderful today, will be Wonderful tomorrow.                                                       

II. Christ is Wonderful for What He Was in the Past

First, Jesus was wonderful for what he was in the past, and here we have to start with the origins of which there is no origin; the eternal existence of Jesus Christ. Christ has existed from eternity past as God, co-equal with the Father. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have propagated the old heresy first taught by Arius, the Arian controversy, that Jesus is actually a created being, that he had a beginning. He’s the greatest of all of God’s creatures. The slogan is, There was when He was not, there was a time that he didn’t exist. It’s a heresy. The Gospel of John makes it very plain from the beginning. John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him, and through him, and without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And this word, it became flesh, and his name is Jesus Christ.” All of that’s in the prologue, John 1:1-18, very, very plain.

So also the Prophet Micah, predicting the location of Jesus’s birth, said this, Micah 5:2, But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, listen to this, whose origins are from old, from ancient times. He’s eternally God. Athenasios, God raised him up to fight this battle against Arianism, to defend the Nicene Creed of orthodoxy. We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made. Of the same essence of the Father, through him all things were made for us and for our salvation, He came down from heaven and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made human. That’s the Nicene Creed.

The eternality of Jesus Christ is wonderful, it’s incomprehensible to us, it staggers us. In Revelation 1, the Apostle John in exile on the island of Patmos had a vision of Jesus, very different from how we perceive Jesus. Do you remember the detail, in particular, Revelation 1:14? His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. So the head and hair represents the eternality of Jesus. He is eternally experienced, been through it all, seen it all, and the eyes of blazing fire, if I can tell you just exudes energy and power. Jesus Christ is still in his prime, but he is the Ancient of Days. Jesus Christ is older than the earth, he’s older than the rocks of the mountains, older than the crashing waves of the sea, he’s older than the oldest oak tree, older than the sun, the moon, and the stars.

The externality of Christ is wonderful, and the incarnation therefore is wonderful, the concept that this eternal being who with the Father created the universe became a helpless baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger is wonderful, just boggles the mind. Mary could not fully fathom it as she cared for her newborn son. Luke 2:19, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” You must imagine this quiet young Jewish girl was stimulated to wonder by these thoughts.

Joseph knew that Mary’s account of her pregnancy was true, because the same angel had told him so, “What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” But how could he contemplate the fullness of this wonder. The shepherds went to see this baby, because the angel appeared in the glory of the Lord, shown around. And what were they told?” Today in the City of David, a savior has been born to you.” Listen to this, “He is Christ the Lord.” That is God’s name. You’re gonna go see God in a manger. The Magi would come and they would offer their gifts, but how could they fully take in the wonder of a baby born to be King of the Jews, for whom a celestial star led them geographically, accurately, and specifically to the house where he was laid.

Even the angels that appeared and celebrated the birth of Jesus, long to look into these things. So angelic wonder, it exists, it’s real. They long to look into them, they’re interested in these things, they’re enticed by them, and they find them amazing. They don’t fully comprehend all of it. But not only that, His death was wonderful, it’s staggering to understand the link between the body that Jesus took on and the body that was nailed to the cross for the sins of the world. How could the infinite Son of God lower Himself to be so debased by his enemy, so humiliated, so despised and abused by them? How could Jesus still the storm with a word and raise Lazarus up from the tomb after four days effortlessly, and yet allow his face to be smashed with a rod, his scalp to be lacerated by thorns, his back to be shredded by a whip, for him to be mocked right up the streets of Jerusalem until he went outside the gate and was crucified like a piece of refuse outside the gate to be scorned and mocked to be nailed and to hang there and bleed out until he was dead, and then a lance in his side, how could he allow all of this?

And this is the very thing that his enemies said, proves he’s not the Son of God. All of us would have retaliated, we would have used whatever power we had to save ourselves. In Matthew 27, his enemies said, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself. He’s the king of Israel. Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God, let God rescue him now, if He wants Him, for He said, I am the Son of God,” that mockery. The fact that he was suffering there and that He died proves he’s not the Son of God to them.

How can we fully comprehend the cup of wrath and anguish and wow that he drank to its bottom? To understand this is too high for us. It is too wonderful, it should create wonder or amazement inside our hearts. How can we fully understand the love of Christ poured out in an unending stream over his enemies, us. While we’re still enemies, He died for us. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life where his friends,” but we weren’t his friends. We were his enemies, we were rebels, we had violated His laws, we had blasphemed his name. And we repaid all of his kindness with sins, more sins than we can recount, more numerous than the hairs of our head. 

How can we measure that love or the humility that goes down, down ever downward from celestial glory down to death on a cross? It’s too high for us. It’s infinite, it’s beyond our ability to comprehend. And so also Jesus triumph over death on the third day, his mighty resurrection victory. It is too wonderful for us to comprehend, These are chains around us we could not break for all of our cleverness and all of our scientific prowess and our medical inventions and achievements in this City of Medicine or in Boston, another city of medicine, or in the Mayo Clinic, we have made progress and we have not defeated death and we never will. Never will. These are chains we cannot break.

“How can we measure that love or the humility that goes down, down ever downward from celestial glory down to death on a cross? “

The mightiest ruler, the wealthiest tycoon, the most popular athlete or entertainer will someday find those same chains wrapped around him or her, and they cannot break them. But like a mighty Samson, Jesus snapped those chains like they were charged threads on the third day. Death could not hold him, there was no way for the grave to hold him back. And death has no power over him ever again. He will never die again. He was raised in a resurrection body that cannot perish, spoil or fade, the first like it and the rest of us will join the harvest someday, we will be part of that, ’cause he’s first fruit, we’ll get the rest. This is too high for us to comprehend, is too marvelous. 

So this morning, if you have eyes of faith, you can’t… You just listening to me speak, but you can just picture with eyes of faith, you could see Jesus standing before all of us like he did before the Apostle John on the island of Patmos. Revelation 1:18, saying, “I am the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive and I live forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.” So his name is wonderful for what he was in the past.

III. Christ is Wonderful for What He Is in the Present                                               

Secondly, Christ is wonderful for what he is now in the present. With eyes of faith, we can see him in his present position. We believe that after His resurrection, He ascended from the surface of the earth, and He moved through the sky and the cloud hid him from their sight, and he moved up through the heavenly realms to sit at the right hand of the Majesty of heaven, of God. At the right hand of God. And Hebrews 4:13 says, “We have a great high priest.” Listen to this, “Who has passed through the heavens.” He didn’t stop there, he didn’t stop at this heaven or that heaven, he passed through all of them, he’s above all created realms, above the highest heavens, which cannot contain Him. 

And so he has this power. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. His heavenly Father said, “Sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet.” Ephesians 1 says that God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church. That’s the power. And from that place, He rules actively over planet Earth for the benefit of his elect people. And we can’t see or fully understand that. We think things don’t make much sense, why is this happening with this government, why is that happening over there with that government, why is… We don’t understand the plans of Almighty God in the way that Jesus is exerting His authority, but He is, and He is working through the Holy Spirit fulfilling the very thing he said before His crucifixion in John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.”

And so he is magnetically drawing the elect and they will come. As John 6 said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” Not most of them. Not almost all of them, all of them are gonna come. All the elect will someday come to Christ, because through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, He will draw them to himself, and that’s what’s going on now, every single day. And that is wonderful. That is wonderful.

And he’s also protecting a sheep with a mighty hand. He’s not gonna allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. He’s filtering your temptations. He is a mighty lion roaring over you, he is like an eagle protecting her young. He is powerful, and you will make it through this sin-cursed world, you’re going to make it, you’re going to get through. He is your good shepherd, and you are His sheep. And he has you in His hand. As he said in John 10, he holds on to you and no one can snatch them out of His hand, and that is wonderful, and he will protect you.

So I just wanna say, stop right now and just say, “Is he wonderful to you right now? Was he wonderful when you woke up this morning? Is he to you wonderful as a savior, wonderful as Almighty God, wonderfully worthy of your worship? Have you crossed over from death to life? Have you trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins? Or are you still walking in darkness in fear of death, not willing maybe to admit it, saying you’re not afraid of anything, but you should be. You should be.

If you’re not in Christ, you should be terrified of death and what follows, the judgment that follows. I feel like for us as evangelists, one of our jobs is to get people who are not afraid to die, but who should be, get them to be afraid, so that they can cross over from darkness and death into light and life, and find joy, the kind of joy celebrated in Isaiah 9, like a great harvest, like a great victory in which you divide the plunder, that’s what it’s like. You don’t have to do anything, you just have to hear these words and believe that they’re true. All the things that I’ve said about Jesus past, that’s the Gospel, and all you have to do is trust in it, your sins will be forgiven and that will be eternally wonderful for you.

“One of our jobs is to get people who are not afraid to die, but who should be, get them to be afraid, so that they can cross over from darkness and death into light and life, and find joy.”

IV. Christ Will Be Wonderful for What He Will Be in the Future

Well, finally, Christ will be wonderful for what he will be in the future. You haven’t seen anything yet, friends. You’re like Nathaniel, who when Jesus came and said, “You have no guiles like, You’re the Son of God, you’re the king of Israel.” He said, “Is that it? Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree you believe? You’re gonna see greater things than these.”

So will all of us, Jesus is going to show infinite dimensions of his amazing character and achievement for all eternity, this is the only way I understand Isaiah 9:7, in which there is no birth, there’s no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven, and yet his kingdom eternally increases in the estimation of His people of how wonderful Jesus the King really is and was, and even will be in the future.

And so he’s gonna be a wonderful Savior too, for the rest of your life. He said, “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.” You’re not going to fall away, he’s going to wonderfully protect you, he’s gonna wonderfully arrange good works for you to walk in, and by the power of the Spirit, you’re gonna do them, and you’re wonderfully on judgment day going to get your gold and silver and costly stones purified and handed to you as an eternal reward, and that will be wonderful. But it won’t be anywhere near as wonderful as realizing it’s only by Christ that you did them all. And not just you, but all of your brothers and sisters.

You look at all their glittering crowns and all of their glittering rewards, and you’ll see them and honor them horizontally, but you’ll give Him the glory because He deserves it. And he’s gonna be infinitely wonderful at His second coming. As Revelation 1:7 says, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. And all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be. Amen.” Matthew 24, “As lightning that flashes in the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” That’s gonna be wonderful.

And then he’s gonna gather all the nations together, and they’ll assemble there, and that will be astonishing. And he’s gonna sit on His throne in Heavenly glory, and He’s gonna separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he’s gonna put the sheep, his elect on his right, and he’s gonna put the goats on his left. Every single person will be dealt with, and how terrifying will it be to hear from his majestic truthful lips, “Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

And the clearing out of all of the wicked, and all of the demons and Satan himself and the condemnation that they will receive will at that time be wonderful because he will do it. And then how wonderful would it be for you if you have faith in Christ, to hear him say, “Come you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” And then to be ushered into that kingdom, to see it last with your own eyes, the New Jerusalem radiant and shining with his glory, no sun, no moon, no star is just the radiant glory of Christ in every direction. And how wonderful will that be?

And you’re gonna spend eternity around the throne, studying his face, you’ll see his face, and you’ll see the light of the glory of God flowing through Him, and you will spend eternity serving him and studying His good deeds of the past and finding wonder and amazement at what he is made in the world, you are there, and then the new things you will do, I don’t know what they’re gonna be, but they’re gonna be wonderful. And you’ll spend eternity saying, his name is wonderful.

I wanna close with the words that Spurgeon used when he preached that sermon, and they moved my heart, this is what Spurgeon said, “There have been times when you and I have said of Christ, His name is wonderful indeed, for we have been by it transported entirely above the world and carried upward to the very gates of heaven itself. I pity you, beloved if you do not understand the rhapsody I’m about to use. There are moments when the Christian feels the charms of earth all broken, and his wings are loosed, and he begins to fly, and up he soars till he forgets earth sorrows and leaves them far behind, and up he goes even further till he forgets earth’s joys and leaves them like the mountain tops far below, as when the eagle flies to meet the sun. And up, up, up, he goes with his Savior, full before him almost in beatific vision. His heart is full of Christ. His soul beholds his Savior, and the cloud that darkened his view of his Saviors face seems to be dispersed. Well, how is that rapture produced? By the music of flute and harp, other instruments? No. How then does this transport occur? By riches, by fame, by wealth, absolutely not. Does it occur by a strong mind, by a lively disposition? No, not at all. HOW THEN? By this and this alone, by the WONDERFUL name of Jesus, ministered to you by the Holy Spirit, that one name is all-sufficient to lead the Christian into heights of transport that verge upon the region where the angels fly in cloudless days.”

And you’re like, “Oh, I would like some of that. Oh, God, lift me up.” He’s not talking about dying, he’s not talking about the second coming of Christ, he’s talking about a vision in the heart based on the word, through the spirit that he ministers to you now, today, that His name is wonderful, I pray that God would give all of you that. 

Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for this incredible text, so ancient 26 centuries old and more, I thank you for the vision it gives us as Christ, one of the clearest descriptions of who Jesus is, that baby laid in the manger, and God, we’ve zeroed in on just one little detail of it, I pray that our hearts would be moved again to wonder. I pray that we would not be stale and hardened and stiff toward the wonder of Christmas, but that we would be softened by the Spirit. Softened by the ministry of the word to be able to receive the goodness of God in these words, and that we’d be able to see in Christ all the wonder that we should see. And we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.