All who heard it wondered at the things which were spoken to them by the shepherds.
Filled with this amazement will cause you a godly watchfulness; you will be afraid to sin against such love as this. Feeling the presence of the mighty God in the gift of His dear Son, you will take off your shoes, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. You will be moved at the same time to a glorious hope. If Jesus has given Himself to you, if He has done this marvelous thing on your behalf, you will feel that heaven itself is not too great for your expectation, and that the rivers of pleasure at God's right hand are not too sweet or too deep for you to drink of. Who can be astonished at anything when he has once been astonished at the manger and the cross? What amazement is there left after one has seen the Savior. The seven wonders of the world! Why, you may put them all into a nutshell--technology and fine art can exceed them all; but this one wonder is not the wonder of earth only, but of heaven and earth, and even hell itself. It is not the wonder of the past, but the wonder of all time and the wonder of eternity. They who have seen human wonders a few times, at last cease to be astonished; the noblest structure that an architect ever raised, at last fails to impress the onlooker; but not so this marvelous temple of incarnate Deity; the more we look the more we are astonished, the more we become accustomed to it, the more have we a sense of its surpassing splendor of love and grace. There is more of God, let us say, to be seen in the manger and the cross, than in the sparkling stars above, the rolling deep below, the towering mountain, the teeming valleys, the abodes of life, or the abyss of death. Let us then spend some choice hours of this festive season in holy amazement, such as will produce gratitude, worship, love, and confidence. 