Steve's Letter: And the Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us.

I once said on a Key Life broadcast that a famous author had died. That's when I started getting letters informing me that he was very much alive. One friend even said that he had talked to this particular author that morning.

I thought I should correct that, but because I record the broadcasts a couple months ahead and because this particular author was so old he didn't even buy green bananas, I thought better of it.

There was a chance that if I said on the broadcast he was alive and kicking by the time it aired, he might have "assumed room temperature"...dead. So I just let the original mistake stand.

There are other problems with doing things so far in advance, particularly if one is a Scrooge. I'm writing this in October yet need to say something about Christmas because you will receive it in December. Not only that, I just came out of the studio after recording the Key Life Christmas programs. That would be no problem for you, but for a Scrooge it is painful. Between looking like Santa Claus and writing about Christmas before we even get to Thanksgiving, I hope you appreciate how I'm suffering. Please pray for me.

I wouldn't do this for anybody except you and Jesus.

In situations like this, I often turn to the Serenity Prayer originally written by Reinhold Niebuhr and extensively used by Alcoholics Anonymous:

God, Give us the grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, Courage
to change the things which should be changed,
And the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

That ought to be "Scrooge's Christmas Prayer."

Actually, I'm kidding. I do Christmas a lot better than I used to and I'm even kind of looking forward to it this year.

I just don't want to do it in October!

Nevertheless, that prayer reminds me of something we all need to remember at Christmas, to wit, we have a lot of problems that simply can't be fixed. Christmas is a time when God did what we can't do. And that is the reason we celebrate.

For instance, we all have what Pascal said was a "God-shaped vacuum" in our souls and what Augustine referred to-that we were created by God and our hearts were restless until they found their rest in him. The Psalmist said, "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1-2).

The problem is that there is nothing we can do about the desire so we hide it, fake it or pretend we have fixed it when we haven't. We try, of course, with the idols we worship, but we know that idolatry (whether the formal idolatry of making a god with our hands or the informal idolatry of creating a substitute god out of our sin) is silly and it never satisfies the hunger in our hearts.

The problem with our desire for God is that God is so big, so awesome, so powerful and so...uh...well...God, that it is insane to even have the desire. Best to focus on something else.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...

We also have a problem with love and we can't fix that either. We were not only created with a desire for God, we were created with a desire to love and be loved. Scripture admonishes us to love our neighbor as ourselves and the cry of Psalmist is often a cry for love.

Have you ever tried to get someone to love you, someone who doesn't and probably never will? Better to forget it and try someone else. What if God is a monster or child abuser? What if God simply doesn't care at all? What if God's love is just a hope dreamed up by silly dreamers whose hope is bigger than the reality? Does God care? Does God love? And more importantly, does God love us? And then the question that is always quietly spoken because we are afraid of the answer: Does God love me?

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...

There is another problem-the problem with meaning. We can't fix that one either. That was Job's problem. It wasn't just the suffering (he was willing to go through that); it was God and the purpose of the suffering. And when he challenged God to answer his cry for meaning, God refused and reminded Job that he was God and Job wasn't. Not very satisfying, if you ask me.

What is this thing all about? "Men must work, and women must weep, and the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep." Is this all there is?

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...

Of course, we've got a sin problem too. We can't even begin to fix that. We identify both with Paul's confession of sin and his cry, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24).

I get that. Sometimes I'm so tired of me and my sin that I can hardly stand it. Who's going to forgive me? I can't forgive myself and the forgiveness of others isn't nearly enough. David understood when he cried out, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight" (Psalm 51:4).

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...

And don't forget about the problem with death. The "grim reaper" is always there in the shadows. That can scare the spit out of you if you think about it too much. Death is a one-out-of-one proposition. Job's question, "If a man dies, shall he live again?" (Job 14:14), is the question all of us have. The problem is that we can't fix the fact of our death or even find answers to our questions about what's on the other side of it. Nobody who has been there will talk about it and the silence makes death an even bigger problem, one we can't fix.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...

That's what Christmas is about-a boatload of problems that we can't fix and a God who came "at the right time" to love us, forgive us and call us, and to tell us about Home. Christmas is a celebration of our helplessness and God's antidote.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (John 1:1, 14, 16).

I started this Christmas letter by telling you I was writing it long before Christmas. Let me tell you something amazing. God did that too. God fixed what we can't fix long before we were ever born. In fact, he did it from before the very foundation of the world.

God looked into the future and saw me and knew my name. He knew yours too. He created us and saw how much we desired to know him, how much we wanted to be loved and how much we needed to be forgiven. He realized that life wasn't for sissies and that there was so much darkness in our living and dying. He knew how helpless we would be.

And at that moment, in eternity, Jesus said goodbye to the angels, acknowledged his Father, packed his bags, and headed for Bethlehem to fix what we can't.

Is that cool or what?

You may have heard the old story about the preacher playing golf. After one very bad shot, an eagle picked up his ball and dropped it on the green. Then a rabbit kicked it into the cup. The preacher threw down his golf club and looked into the sky. "Please, God," he shouted, "I would rather do it myself!"

I hope your Christmas is a really wonderful one. (Humming a Christmas carol helped me say that!)

Enjoy your family, the gifts, the tree and the music.

But for God's sake and yours, quit trying to do it yourself.

He asked me to remind you!

In His Grip,