We have several small children in our family now.  Our niece and nephew both have little ones, ranging in age from a month old to eight years old, and one of the joys of Christmas is watching them first checking out the gifts under the tree, wondering what’s in them, oohing and aahing at the bright ribbons and shiny paper, and then on Christmas morning (when we open our presents), watching them tear into the wrapped packages, discover what’s inside, and then spend the rest of the day playing with the boxes that the presents came in. 

            Any of you who’ve ever been around little kids on Christmas know that that’s the way it always goes … the kids get these wonderful beeping, moving, flashing toys, which become totally uninteresting after about five minutes, but the boxes … the boxes are a whole different story.  The smaller ones get stacked up like blocks … the larger ones get built into towers, that then get knocked down … and if there are any really, really big ones – big enough for a child to get inside – they become forts, or spaceships, or other fantasy creations. 

            Kids look at boxes totally different from the way adults do.  We see their basic function – to hold things.  Kids see their possibilities – their shapes, sizes, weights, and everything that they could become.  And that is part of what wonder is about.  That ability to look at something … or to hear something … and to see or hear the something that is even deeper, something underneath what is on the surface.  That ability to look at the ordinary, and see the extraordinary.

            It is part of the wonder that is at the very heart of the Christmas story.  A story where an ordinary young woman named Mary and her ordinary husband named Joseph agree to be part of a most extraordinary plan of God’s.  A story where ordinary working people, and ordinary scholars, and ordinary animals, even, all come together to celebrate the birth of a child who is so extraordinary, the very fact of His living will transform the world.  A story that fulfills the prophecy of wonder that we heard this morning from Isaiah:  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined… For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God …Prince of Peace.  (And He will establish and uphold (God’s people) with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.” 

            And it’s part of the wonder that I suspect each of us seeks at this time of year.  Yes, we enjoy the decorations, and the music, and the other trimmings of the season, to be sure, but most of us also spent some time looking beyond them – looking for what truly beats at the heart of this season … that thing that can transform our ordinary lives into extraordinary lives.

            But there is another kind of wonder in this season as well.  The kind of wonder – or wondering – that we hear today in that remarkably somber reading from Matthew’s gospel.  The reading where that wild man we talked about last week – that fellow named John, the Baptizer – shows up again. 

            But this time, he’s not down on the banks of Jordan River, preaching and baptizing, and calling people to repentance.  This time, he’s not the man filled with passion and sureness about the message he’s there to deliver.  This time, he’s not the popular preacher surrounded by adoring crowds and would-be followers, hundreds of them coming from all parts of the country just to hear him preach and be baptized. 

            This time, he’s in prison.  In the fortress prison of Machaerus – terrifyingly fortified, dark, wet, filthy, and reeking.  Imprisoned by Herod Antipas, whose marriage to his niece and sister-in-law Herodius John has condemned …   and knowing Herod’s craziness, and vengefulness, John also knows that his days are numbered – that soon he’ll die a violent and painful death at the hand of the palace executioner.

            And suddenly, we see a very different John.  No longer so sure of everything.  Wondering, perhaps, whether his mission and his life’s work has been, in fact, a total failure.  Wondering, whether, after all, this man Jesus – this man he himself had baptized, and seen the Holy Spirit descend upon – the man John claimed was so important that he himself wasn’t worthy to tie this man’s sandals – whether this Jesus really is everything John had believed him to be. 

            Even in the darkness and isolation of the prison, stories are circulating.  Sitting in their cells, the prisoners share the gossip that seeps in from the outside.  And John starts hearing some things about Jesus that he finds pretty disturbing. 

            Maybe you remember from last week that in a whole lot of his sermons, John was preaching a coming Messiah who was fierce and destructive, who was going to smite the Romans, and lay waste to everything that was wrong.  He preached about a God who threatened wrathful retribution and judgment and the punishment of evildoers.  And now, in prison, he’s hearing stories that Jesus – the one John thought was the Anointed One – is traveling around talking to people … telling stories … healing the sick … preaching a message of grace, rather than judgment, of love, instead of punishment.  This is not the Messiah that John had had in mind at all! 

            And so, both angrily – and perhaps plaintively as well – he sends some of his followers to Jesus ask the question he cannot:  “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  Are you the One?  Are you really the One we’ve been waiting for?  Are you really God-with-us?  Are you really the One who can and will change everything?

            And isn’t that the question we sometimes ask, too?  Even though we’re showing up in church Sunday after Sunday, and maybe even doing some good deeds on the side, don’t we sometimes wonder – especially in the midst of this crazy and beautiful season when everyone is running around like mad, many of them presumably getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth – is He the One?  The One we’ve been waiting for?  The One who is God-with-us?  The One who can and will change us and our world as well?

            They’re powerful questions.  Tough questions.  So how does Jesus answer them?   

            Notice first, that he doesn’t criticize or condemn John for asking the question.  Jesus doesn’t shout, “what’s wrong with you?  How can you have so little faith?  Of course I’m the one.  What are you thinking?!” 

            Jesus doesn’t even say, “Listen to who I tell you I am.”  Jesus says, “look at what I do – not what I say.  And then reach your own conclusions.” 

            He says:  “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”  So what do you think?  Is that the work of God or not?

          (And then, in an immensely pastoral and loving way, Jesus goes on to give a powerful and beautiful eulogy to John that must have helped carry the Baptizer through those terrible final days of his life.)

            And Jesus’ point is that obviously, this is the work of God.  And it’s when we join Him in that work … when we do our part in doing the work of God … when we offer the healing that we are able to offer; when we encourage others (and ourselves) to new life; when we bring the good news to others through the way we speak to them, and the way we treat them … it’s then and only then that we really do know Him; that we really do know the answer to the question:  “Are you the One?”

            I was thinking about this last Thursday when I attended the Women’s Fellowship Christmas Luncheon.  Our entertainers that day were a group of Barbara Harvey’s students, a/k/a the Pied Pipers.  For those of you who are newer to our church, Barb teaches special-needs students at Fruita-Monument High School. 

            And several years ago, when she was teaching at the Middle School in Fruita, she partnered with a music teacher there – our Anne Djokic – because she wanted to expand the range of learning experiences available to her very special students.  And since then, the Pied Pipers have not only performed at their school, but also here in our church, and at local and state events of all kinds. 

            These kids have a range of special challenges, and they work really hard to learn their music, and to do a good job in their performances.  And they’re as justifiably proud at the end of their performances as any other musicians.

            For Thursday’s lunch, they played two Christmas songs on the hand-chimes, and then sang to us – and with us – a number of Christmas carols.  Their next-to-the-last number was “Silent Night.”  And as they sang, although they were singing the first verse that’s pretty familiar to most of us … my mind and heart went to the words of the third verse of the hymn:  “Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light; Radiant beams from thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.”

            Because, as they were singing, I thought about the fact that 100 years ago – and in some communities, far more recently than that – these specially-abled and specially-challenged kids would have had no place in their communities.  Not that long ago, mentally-challenged children were often thrown out of their homes, to live or die as they might on the streets – and most died.  Others were locked away in closets or back rooms, or confined to the back wards of state mental hospitals.  But today, in this country, these kids get to go to school, and to grow, and to learn, and to develop whatever gifts they’ve been given – with the help of compassionate, creative teachers, and of educational leaders who believe in the worth of all children, and of those of us who pay taxes to help support their education. 

            And that, my friends, is following Jesus’ example at its best – that is one way we do healing and encouraging and sharing the good news with others.  That is the way that the “radiant beams” of God’s “redeeming grace” spreads from us, to others, to fill our world.  And that, my friends, is where and how we find the deep wonder of this season, for which so many of us are searching.  As we share our gifts of acceptance … of compassion …. of care … of hope … may we find the wonder that is the “reason for the season” deep within our hearts and spirits.  Amen.