The angel of God said, “What’s this? You ask for my name? You wouldn’t understand—it’s sheer wonder.” Judges 13:18 (MSG)

Judges and Wonder – Sheer Wonder Series – Part 1

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4

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Mary was not the first woman that the ‘Angel of the Lord’ appeared to with news of impending birth and her miraculous pregnant condition. Back in the book of Judges, one hundred or so years before the birth of King David, there was a couple from Zorah, who were unable to have children. An angel appeared before the woman (who is not named) and told her that she would conceive, that she was, in fact, already pregnant, and that the son she would bear would spark a revolution for her people, and would launch their deliverance from their oppressors: the Philistines.

Sounds familiar.

Don’t let the familiarity or the age of the story or the primitive people who are represented in it, strip it of its wonder. Imagine it was happening to you, or your wife, or your mum, or your sister…

After the angel had appeared to the woman (I would LOVE to be able to call her by name), she told her husband that he “looked like the angel of God—terror laced with glory!” (Judges 13:6 MSG).

We sing these beautiful songs about the name of God, the wonder of his beauty and this majesty of his being, his holiness, especially around Christmas time, but I wonder if we ever stop to imagine what it would be like to encounter him face to face. What does terror laced with glory look like? Feel like? What would it do to your soul and heart to witness that? Frederick Buechner said: “Glory is what God looks like when for the time being all you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes.”

We throw around the name of God like it's a piece of gold jewellery: beautiful, expensive, valuable… but somewhat common and understandable. Definable.

But Monoah’s wife, the woman in Judges who was told that she would give birth to someone who would save her people, she described the encounter as something she couldn’t explain with mere language. When the angel appeared to her husband, he asked him his name, and he replied,

“What’s this? You ask for my name? You wouldn’t understand— it’s sheer wonder.”

Terror laced with glory.

Did Mary see the same thing when the angel visited her years and years later? Had the wonder worn off? Was he a little less terrifying and glorious all at the same time?

What about you and me?

What do we see when we say the name “Jesus?” What do we feel when we say the name of “God?” Are we expecting the undefinable and terrifying and glorious?

Or do we slip into seeing and expecting and experiencing something less than “sheer wonder?”

Go to Part 2 – The Greatest Challenge You Will Ever Face »

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Written by Liz Milani

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