Sustaining Awe and Wonder

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. —Acts 2:43

I can’t help doing a lot of reminiscing these days. With our younger child on the cusp of graduating from high school and making us empty nesters, memories of both our kids’ childhoods flood my every thought.

As I reflect on chapter two of the Acts of the Apostles and how awe and wonder came upon that earliest community of believers, I think about my kids’ sense of awe and wonder in the early years of their lives. The first time they saw snow and couldn’t wait to play in it. The first firework they saw explode in the sky. Road trips where they would look with wide eyes at cows, point at them, and say out loud, “Cows!” Remembering the awe that came upon them back then and the wonder that filled their souls, I think, “We need more of that—all of us do.”

In their conversational commentary on the fellowship of believers in Acts 2, Luther Seminary professors Karoline Lewis, Cody Sanders, and Matt Skinner remark that the community is drawn to a sense of wonder and awe together, and it is soul-sustaining. That’s what happens when we devote ourselves to something bigger than any one of us: we are drawn together into a sense of awe and wonder at what God can do through our shared nurturing of community. Speaking prayers in unison that remind us that we are not alone in the pain and joy that we carry. Bringing our resources together—food, diapers, books, clothes, period products, money—all to help our neighbors in need, and seeing how our shared giving reflects God’s abundant goodness, spurring us to give more. Learning about the wisdom of God and the Way of Jesus, and discerning the direction of the Holy Spirit in our small group discussions and Bible studies and Sunday School lessons and sermons and mental health walks and pop-up conversations after worship services. Singing together, holding moments of silence together, laughing and crying together, praising and lamenting together. This is the stuff of wonder that fills and sustains our souls. We need more of that—all of us do.

In their conversation, Lewis, Sanders, and Skinner also point out that the signs of wonder and awe that proceed from Acts 2 are the apostles’ healing miracles by which they restore people to community. It’s always about bringing one another back to a childhood sense of wonder and sustaining that empowering, inspiring wonder through our shared acts of faith. When life’s challenges and the onslaught of depressing news harden our hearts and threaten to break our souls, we need to be restored to communal living that is bigger than any one of us; and in that community—in that fellowship of believers—we can sustain the awe and wonder that every one of us needs to be able to look at the world and say, “God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.”

A couple of weeks ago when our daughter and I were flying home from college visits and the plane was making its initial descent, I looked out the window. The sky was a perfect blue. The white clouds underneath us looked like a dancing ocean holding still for our boat with wings to plunge into it. It was awesome. And I glanced over at her. She was looking at it, too. Her 18-year-old self might not say it out loud anymore, but it was awesome, and we knew it, and that was good.

May we all be so blessed with such signs of wonder. May that goodness of God fill our souls, and may we, together, sustain that goodness through our shared acts of justice, mercy, and love that give witness to love everlasting. And may the world see our sense of awe and wonder and think, “We need more of that—all of us do.”