Awesomeness

December 10, 2021 Jim Musser

It was this word, awesomeness, that came to mind as my wife and I were lying in our bed in Pretoria, South Africa earlier this week, first listening to an approaching thunderstorm and then being engulfed by it. Flashes of lightening, almost like a strobe light, and peals of thunder echoing through the valley. Such awesome power. Enough to fell trees and knock out power stations.

The word awesome has become a byword for something great happening to us or someone else. Someone earns a degree or a promotion—that’s awesome! Someone takes a trip to an exotic place—that’s awesome! In reality, this usage greatly diminishes the word. The meaning is creating a feeling of fear and wonder. Something that is truly awesome humbles us by revealing how truly small and powerless we are.

That night, lying in bed, was a reminder to me of the awesomeness of God. Like the Lord asked Job,

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?” (Job 38:22-30)

No one can control the lightning and thunder, or control how much rain falls and where. Who can keep the wind from blowing or control the heat of the sun? As the Lord was pointing out to Job, no human can compare to God. He is awesome; we are not.

But the awesomeness of God is not limited to his creative abilities and demonstrations of power. It is also in that as awesome as he is, he still seeks us as his partners in ministry. He wants us fallen but redeemed human beings to carry out his work on earth, bringing reconciliation and life to those around us through introducing them to Jesus, not only through words, but deeds as well. He wants to show them Jesus through the way in which we live our lives.

This month, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus. He came to give us a clearer idea of who God is and to make a way for us to be reconciled to him (John 14:6-9). Yet, this is only part of the story. Just before his Ascension, he gave his disciples, including us, our marching orders, otherwise known as the Great Commission:

Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:18-20)

The awesome, resurrected Lord is commanding us to carry on his mission of reconciling the world to himself, one person at a time, and assisting in his transforming work of lost and broken people into what they were created to be. This whole plan, from beginning to end, clearly demonstrates the awesomeness of our Lord.

As we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, let us not lose sight of his awesomeness. Cuteness may be what we see in babies. But this baby led grown men to kneel before him in worship. They saw beyond the manger, but I doubt they could see it clearly. Yet, we have been given that privilege. Should we not humble ourselves in the same way and recognize what an awesome God we serve?