It is the language of wonder. The words were describing not just an object, but the experience of interacting with this wonderful new object – to make us ask: how did they do that?

It was tapping into a fundamental human experience, which is that sense of profound amazement when we encounter something we are delighted by, but can’t readily explain. And this sense of wonder is very useful for the marketers of consumer products, because it evokes in us a kind of open-eyed, fascinated desire. We are deeply attracted to the things that amaze us. It may seem like a strange thing to say, but we love the experience of being astounded.

The experience of wonder is best represented by two punctuation marks: “!” and “?” Or, by two simple words: “wow!” and “how?”

The first reaction is almost involuntary. We are just struck – awestruck – by an encounter with something that is bigger, or more complex, or more beautiful than we thought possible. In some way, we are presented with a sudden moment of realising how small, or weak, or simple we are in comparison to something extraordinary (whether it be the Grand Canyon or an iPhone). We cannot then suppress our reaction – but it is a reaction that says, “my words cannot really describe what I am seeing.” That’s a good summary of the “wow!”

But then comes the “how?” If you stand in front of the Pyramids of Giza, or peer through a telescope into deep space, or drive a Maserati, or listen to a Beethoven symphony, you find yourself marvelling at the possibility that such a things exists. How could it come to be? Why is it this way? How is this specialness even available to me in the world?

This question is not necessarily a question that wants or needs an answer. It is rather a question that says: I cannot comprehend how this is so. It is instinctively humble. Wonderment may of course be the trigger to a serious investigation into the way things have come together, or the constituent parts that belong to it. But at one level, to know too much is to remove the wonder from it. If we see the chef sweating and swearing in the kitchen over a raw piece of meat, the miracle of the beautifully done steak on our clean plate in the restaurant seems less amazing somehow. If we break down a thing of wonder into its bits, we may be guilty of reducing it to a pile of its inglorious parts.

However, the investigations of scientists into the workings and composition of the natural world (prompted by the “how?”) have not decreased but rather increased our sense of “wow!” Who knew that there were that many species of insect? Who knew that the universe was that phenomenally large? Who could have guessed at the extraordinary world of microbes? These things become more, rather than less, glorious and wondrous the more we know about them.

This is where there is a difference between the iPhone and the ibex. The “how?” question can be exhausted with the iPhone, and the answer is quite dull; and our amazement rapidly fades. We need an iPhone 6 to replace it. But the ibex (a species of wild goat with long horns): now, we can dissect an ibex, and we can capture an ibex, and we can even eat one. But it is hard to become bored with the ibex. Reducing it to its biological components scarcely begins to apprehend it in its sheer ibexness. And, to really grasp what it is, we cannot isolate it from the entirety of the natural world of which it is part and in which it participates.

It is this wholeness of nature – this extraordinary, harmonious, animated symphony of matter, living and non-living – that points to the divine. As Paul says in Romans 1:

Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.

The character of God is not visible to the optic nerve. But in apprehending the created world, we can (and ought to) “see” the divine majesty of God himself. As the old hymn says it:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

consider all the works thy hand hath made,

I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,

thy power throughout the universe displayed.

If the universe is awesome, beautiful, terrifying, delightful and mysterious, then its maker must be all these things and more.

The universe is an extraordinary thing of power and beauty. But there are also creatures within that universe who seem to have been put there precisely to apprehend the glory and majesty of the created order. The experience of wonder seems to be something we were made for. Says the Psalmist:

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?

The Psalmist’s “wow!” leads to a “how?” He asks: if the cosmos God created is so extraordinary, then how is it that human beings matter to him, given how small and feeble they are? He is dwarfed by the grandeur and majesty of God’s works. And yet still, wondrously, God cares for his human creatures, and even crowns them with his glory and honour. They are not, in the scheme of things, seemingly of much significance. But God calls them his.

And as the narrative of Scripture unfolds, there is an even more wondrous thing to consider: God redeems his wayward creatures, and plans for them to share in his glory. Again and again, the Bible makes the majestic beauty of creation a pattern for the supreme glory of God’s work in salvation. There is no wonder that surpasses the cross of Jesus Christ. When we come to the cross, we must be struck by a “!” and then a “?” that exceeds our wonder at the created world. How? How is it possible that the mighty creator of all might, through love – yes, love! – of his broken human creatures, hang rejected on a cross for their sakes?

We cannot answer the question; we can just wonder that it is the case.

This is how the great preacher Jonathan Edwards put it:

The wonders of divine grace are the greatest of all wonders.

The wonders of divine power and wisdom in the making of this great world are marvellous; other wonders of his justice in punishing sin are wonderf
ul; many wonderful things have happened since the creation of the world, but none like the wonders of grace.

Edwards would say that it is a vital part of the Christian life to cultivate our sense of wonder. And what Christians do when they gather should certainly attune us to the wonderful works of God. We need to refine our tastes – to become resensitised to the beauty and majesty of the work of God for human beings. We need opportunities to experience the “wow!” and the “how?” for which we were made.

It is a bit like cultivating a taste for fine art, or for handcrafted beers. How does that happen? You can’t do it in abstract. You have to actually go to the art gallery. You have to actually taste the beers. But an expert can help you articulate what you are experiencing. And you can share your experiences with others. In fact, even though these experiences are subjective and personal, they are greatly deepened and enriched by others.

We need to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 15). A taste for him is really worth cultivating. And it can be by developing the habits and practices of the wonder of God. You cannot wonder at God’s glory as a bystander. Nor is it as good as it could be in isolation from others. If our feelings towards God are benumbed, we can awaken them, and resensitise them, by taking ourselves once more to the foot of the cross – in prayer, in song, and at the table.

The best Christian hymn writers have understood wonder and it is interesting how frequently the best hymns have “wow!” / “how?” moments:

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the saviour’s blood?

Or an even more famous example:

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

These are moments when we are helped to an experience of the immensity of God. In these words we apprehend the sublime paradox of God’s love for sinful humankind in Christ Jesus.

We also have that moment as we come to the Lord’s table, and share in the graphic symbol of Christ’s death for us. As another hymn writer puts it:

When I think that God his son not sparing,

sent him to die, I scarce can take it in.

How could we “take it in”? And yet: there it is.

Michael Jensen is the rector of St Mark’s church in Darling Point, Sydney and the author of several books