Beauty, Wonder, and the God Who Still Reveals

Wednesday, December 24, 2025
written by Rev. Erik Khoobyarian

There are moments at Christmas when beauty catches us off guard.

It might be candlelight flickering in a darkened sanctuary, the hush that settles just before a familiar carol begins, or the sound of a child’s voice reading words we have heard many times before. Sometimes it happens outside of church altogether—in the quiet of a winter morning (even in the desert!), in a moment of generosity we did not expect, or in the sudden awareness that something holy is near.

Beauty has a way of slowing us down. It interrupts our momentum and asks us to pay attention. And when we do, we often discover that beauty is not an end in itself. It opens the door to something deeper. It awakens wonder.

Where have you noticed beauty recently that made you pause or look twice? What might God be showing you through that moment?

At Christmas, beauty and wonder are not sentimental extras. They are essential. They are how we begin to perceive the mystery at the heart of the season: the God who reveals God’s very self, not only long ago, but here and now.

Beauty as God’s Language

From the very beginning of Scripture, God is revealed through beauty. Creation itself is God’s first self-disclosure—not a set of ideas, but a world spoken into being and declared “good.” The psalmists look at the heavens and see more than stars; they see glory. The prophets describe visions so vivid and strange that words strain to contain them.

God does not only tell us who God is. God shows us.

Augustine once prayed, “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new.” He understood that beauty draws us toward God before we fully understand what is happening. Beauty moves us. It stirs longing. It invites response.

Christmas: Beauty Made Flesh

At Christmas, beauty takes on flesh and bone.

The Christian claim is not simply that God sent a message into the world, but that God came into the world—fully, vulnerably, and personally. In Jesus, God’s nature is revealed not in abstraction, but in a human life.

And it is a strange kind of beauty.

A young woman is overwhelmed by an angel’s news. A man wrestling with fear and trust. A child born not into comfort, but into uncertainty. Shepherds, not dignitaries, were summoned as witnesses.

This is not beauty as spectacle. It is beauty as nearness.

The Gospel writers do not polish the story or make it impressive by worldly standards. They let it remain ordinary, fragile, and human. And precisely there—in vulnerability rather than power—we see who God is.

What part of the Christmas story feels most alive to you this year? Is there an image, phrase, or character that keeps returning to your thoughts?

As theologian Karl Barth said, in Jesus Christ we encounter “the humanity of God.” Christmas reveals a God who chooses relationship over distance, love over control, presence over protection. This is the beauty that saves the world.

Revelation That Continues

It is easy to think of revelation as something completed and closed—a chapter finished once Scripture was written or once Jesus’ earthly life ended. But the Christmas story itself resists that idea.

The God who comes to us in Christ is not a God who withdraws. The incarnation is not a brief appearance; it is a commitment. The same God continues to reveal God’s self through the work of the Holy Spirit—shaping communities of love, stirring acts of compassion and justice, and meeting us in places we may not expect.

Frederick Buechner once urged readers to “listen to your life.” He believed that God’s voice often sounds less like a command and more like an invitation—an invitation to notice where grace is already at work.

When have you sensed God’s presence in ordinary or unexpected places? How might those moments be invitations to deeper trust or gratitude?

Revelation does not stop. Often, our attention does.

Wonder as a Spiritual Practice

If beauty opens the door, wonder is the posture that allows us to walk through it.

Wonder is not naïve optimism. It does not deny suffering or ignore the brokenness of the world. Instead, wonder insists that the world is more than what we can measure, manage, or explain.

Simone Weil described attention as the purest form of prayer. Wonder is attention shaped by trust—the trust that God is near, that God is still revealing God’s self, and that we may glimpse that revelation if we are willing to look.

What helps you cultivate wonder—silence, music, prayer, time in nature, acts of generosity? How might you make a little more space for that practice this season?

At Christmas, wonder allows shepherds to leave their fields, Mary to treasure what she cannot yet understand, and the church to keep telling this story across centuries.

Wonder for All Ages

This posture of wonder is not only for adults or for the spiritually mature. Children often recognize what we forget—that beauty matters, that questions are holy, and that God is not far away.

For families, Christmas offers simple opportunities to practice attention together.

You might ask at the end of the day:
“Where did we see something beautiful or surprising today?”
“How might that be one way God was near to us?”

Such questions teach us that faith is not only learned in words, but in noticing.

Christmas Does Not End

The danger of Christmas is not that we celebrate it too deeply, but that we contain it too narrowly. We compress it into a few days, a handful of services, familiar rituals—and then we move on.

But Christmas is not only a season. It is a declaration that continues to unfold: God is with us. God is revealing God’s self. God is still speaking through beauty and still inviting us into wonder.

The question is not whether God is present. The question is whether we are paying attention.

May this Christmas slow us down enough to notice. May beauty open our eyes. May wonder shape our days. And may we discover, again and again, that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is still revealing God’s self in this world, in our lives, and in ways we may not yet expect.