and then he came. Let's talk about it on this edition of Keylight. You kind of get tired of doctrine without application, religion without reality, and cliches without truth. If so, you come to the right place. The place, Keylight, the teacher, Steve Brown. This is Mike, Merry Christmas to you, and Merry Christmas to all of you who've had time in the midst of a very busy time to tune into Keylight. If you've been listening the last couple of days, we've taken a break from our Old Testament survey, and we're looking at some themes that have to do with Christmas. And this is Christmas Day. If you're a child, you thought it was never going to get here, didn't you? But it did. The people of the New Testament thought it was never going to come either, and then he came. And we're going to talk about that today. If you have a Bible, I'm not going to read from the traditional Christmas story. I'm going to rather read from the first chapter of the gospel according to John. Where John writes his follows in the beginning, what's the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men, the light shines, and the darkness and darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, who's named John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He wasn't the light, but he came to point to and bear witness about the light. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh, and wealth 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. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known. As you may know, or may not know, Christmas has not been my favorite time of the year in the past. I suspect my dislike of Christmas had something to do with the fact that for almost 30 years I was a pastor. And if you're a pastor, the Christmas season can really do some terrible things to your life. For instance, you must lead more worship services. That means more sermons, and that means more preparation. Furthermore, everybody is very busy at Christmas, so the normal work of the church has to come to a screeching halt. Everybody is too busy to do anything except think about Christmas. And that puts a real dent in the availability of voluntary help for the churches ongoing work. And then also for some reason that Christmas the problems most people face are magnified. People who are lonely feel more lonely at Christmas. People who don't feel accepted or affirmed feel even less so. Family problems have a way of becoming monster problems around Christmas. Drunks get drunk, or angry people become more angry, if full people become more fearful. That in turn increases the pastor's counseling load. And then if you're a pastor, you have to do all the other stuff. Regular people have to do around Christmas. Things like shopping for presents, going to Christmas get together and all that kind of stuff. By the time Christmas is over, most pastors are ready for a rest in the psychiatric ward of the local hospital. The nervous breakdown is well deserved. After all, the pastor worked hard for it. He earned it. He deserves it. But this Christmas I'm not a pastor. To be perfectly honest, but he feels a little funny. Instead of thinking about how busy I am, I'm thinking about how loving God was. Instead of thinking about the Christmas sermons and how to deal with the old themes in a new way, I'm thinking about the sermon he preached in a stable and Bethlehem instead of having a pitty party. I'm having a birthday party. It isn't my birthday. It's his son's. And so now that I'm not a pastor, I've been able to be still a bit, think about what Christmas really means. Christmas is about a lot of nice things. Christmas is about the worship of a God who would enter time and space. Christmas is about friends and family. Christmas is about getting and caring. It's about rejoicing because one is a part of the family of God. It's about truth and salvation. But mostly Christmas is about love. Love so incredible and so wonderful that it almost defies our ability to believe it. For God so love the world. That's a good statement. And a comforting one if you can believe it. But it could also be naive. Could be wishful, Bill. Could be nothing more than a positive platitude or religious slogan after all. If God loves the world, how come there's so many problems. If God loves the world, how come I heard so much? Let me tell you a story. She was 15 and he was 17 when they met. Through high school they went steady. So after high school no one was surprised when they got married. Some four years later and two children later she was standing in her kitchen with a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and a pile of dirty diapers in the corner. Tears were strumming down her face. Looking back she could never be quite sure why she made the decision. But she did. She took off her apron. She walked out. She called that night and her young husband answered the phone. He was understandably worried and a little bit angry. Where are you? He demanded his concern and his anger fighting for control of his voice. How are the children? She asked ignoring the question. Well, if you mean to ask if they're fed they are. I've also put them to bed. They're wondering just as I am. What do you think you're doing? She hung up the phone that night. But it wasn't the last of the phone calls. She called almost every week for the next three months. Her husband knowing that something was seriously wrong began in those phone calls to plead with her to come home. He would tell her that the children were with their grandparents during the day when we're well cared for but he would also tell her that he loved her. He would tell her how much they all missed her and then he would try to find out where she was whenever the conversation turned to her whereabouts she would hang up the phone. Finally, the young husband couldn't stand it any longer. He took their savings and he hired a private detective to find his wife. It wasn't so hard. The detective founder reported she was in a third grade hotel across the country in Des Moines, Iowa. Young man borrowed some money from his in-laws. He bought a plane ticket and he flew to Des Moines. After taking a camp from the airport to the hotel, he climbed the stairs and they were stairs covered with carpet, threadbare. Those kinds of hotels don't have elevators. If you had been there, you would have seen the doubt in his eyes and the perspiration on his forehead as he reached up to knock on the door. He had memorized his speech and it was a good one. He was going to tell her how much he loved her. He was going to tell her about how much they had missed her and what was happening with the children. But when she came to the door after he knocked, he just said, I love you so much. Won't you come home? And she fell apart in his arms and they went home together. One evening, some weeks later, the children were in bed and he and his wife were sitting in the living room before the fire. Now that's the wonderful time of the day. If you don't have children, you won't understand. But if you do, you will. When they're finally asleep, you've given them the eighth glass of water. They've gone to the bathroom 14 times and they're finally asleep. And they got quiet as they were sitting around the fire and he finally got enough courage to ask the question that it haunted him for so many months. Why? Why did you do that? Why wouldn't you come home? Why when I told you over and over again that I loved and missed you, didn't you come home? Didn't she smile and said with profound simplicity, but for those were only words. But then you came. It's nice to think that God loved the world, but at the first Christmas he didn't just give us the words. He didn't just use platitudes or cliches, he came. He came when the Israeli married Mary Lewis. She was 12 years his senior and while he was certainly not destitute, Mary Lewis was a wealthy woman. Love for each other was legendary. Sometimes he and Mary would kid each other about their marriage. He would say, Mary, I only married you for your money. Yes, Mary would reply, but dear, if you had it to do over again, you would do it for love. Most of us came to Christ for a variety of reasons. Some of us were without meaning in our lives. Others of us were overwhelmed about our sin and our guilt, perhaps there was a particular problem that drove us to Christ. Maybe we simply felt that the gospel made sense and accepted Christ in the same way, one accepts the multiplication table. But after walking with him, all of us would say with Mary Lewis, if we had it to do over again, it would be about love. I've been thinking about Christmas this year, I've had time. I'm not a pastor anymore, it's not that I don't care, it's just that I don't have a church to be a pastor of. It's not that I don't care about the broken hearts and the people that have to be counseled. It's not that I don't care about the worship services, I just don't have to do the sermons anymore. And so I've had some time to kind of sit and be still and think about him. And I think about that story of the young man who loved his wife so much and told her over and over again and the more he told her, the more she ran. And finally, he went to her and he found her and asked her to come home and the difference was before it was words. And then he came. For God so loved the world, he did, you know? But you don't know that. I mean, it could be just a nice saying that somebody dreamed up to make people feel good. For God so loved the world, he does, you know? But if it's just that, it's just plain words. But the text doesn't end there. Try to remember it today as you enjoy your Christmas. For God so loved the world that he gave his only a gotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You think about that? I mean, hey, from all of us at Key Life, Merry Christmas and oh yes. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.