Astonishing Majesty

Robin and I were reading from Luke 9, where Jesus heals a boy who is possessed and tormented by a demon. Jesus commands the demon to leave the boy and then gives the boy back to his father. Luke ends the story with verse 43:

"And all were astonished at the majesty of God."

Wow! A crowd is gathered and sees Jesus do a miracle, and their response is to be astonished…at the…majesty…of God. Wow! Luke's statement is pretty low-key but the crowd seems to know that they have seen something very special.

I was struck by those two words, astonished and majesty. To be astonished means to be greatly surprised or impressed; to be amazed. Majesty means to have impressive stateliness, dignity, or beauty. How often are we, as Christians, astonished at the majesty of God? Is that the kind of response we should only have when something truly extraordinary happens, or could it be present much more frequently in our day-to-day life?

I started thinking about a few things that happened over the past week. There is a woman I used to work with who was recently diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. She is a woman with faith in Jesus and she is on our congregation's prayer list. The latest report is that her chemotherapy is having an effect in decreasing her cancer. That seems to me to be the kind of thing that shows God's power at work, an astonishing display of his majesty for sure.

Other things included a few new faces in worship the past two Sundays. A few people stopping by the house to talk and pray over things in their lives. Some other people giving me a glimpse into their lives through the prayer requests they wrote down and passed my way. And almost every time I look at any of the three children that God has very unexpectedly placed in our home I have to marvel at what is going on in the lives of all five of us as a result.

On the one hand these details from my life are much lesser than the dramatic healing of the boy, or the healing going on within my friend, but they are not in any way lesser displays of God's astonishing majesty.

The difference between myself and the crowd that witnessed Jesus' miracle in Luke is that as a person who already has faith in Jesus as my Savior and Lord I am more readily able to see God's power at work in world in the places that most people would consider to be fairly ordinary. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord of all creation, and that includes not just the big and powerful things, but also all of the ordinary and much lesser things.

So later today, and tomorrow, and every day, take a moment to look around, and see God at work, not just in the grand things, but also the little things. Be astonished at his majesty wherever you see it. And give him the praise that he deserves. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.