It is interesting this time of year to listen to everything on the radio that is a part of building the spirit of Christmas. It is always interesting to see what little additions come along. Lots of the songs that you and I love, that get us into the mood of Christmas, don't really have anything to do with the birth of Christ: "Silver Bells," "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas."

I'm not going to bah humbug those songs. But some of them strain me. Last year's song about the reindeer that ran over grandma, did you know there is a sequel to that song this year? Grandma runs over the reindeer. I heard one a few years ago about Snoopy and the Red Baron in a dog fight. The Red Baron has him in his sights and he hears church bells down below and doesn't shoot him down. Some people have a low tolerance for sentiment and they get all teary-eyed with that.

Christmas is not celebrated because of grandma and the reindeer or Snoopy and the Red Baron. Christmas is celebrated because of the birth of one baby. Listen to two verses:

"When they were there the time came for her baby to be born."

Or from Galatians 4:

"When the fullness of time had come God sent his own son."

Christmas is about God's timing in our lives. Each of us knows how important timing is. If you are a mechanic the timing gear on a car determines whether it runs, how smoothly and how economically it runs. If you are involved in athletics you know the timing for that lineman to make his block or the timing for the quarterback to turn and make that pass off is critical. If you grow things, when you plant them is critical.

Humor. Whether something is funny or boring sometimes has nothing to do with the content, it has to do with the timing. I love to listen to Garrison Keillor tell stories, the Lake Wobegon man. If you have never heard him tell any of the stories you have missed one of American's great storytellers. You could give one of his best stories to my Uncle Bill and he could put you to sleep telling it. He doesn't have any sense of timing. He doesn't know what to leave out; he includes everything.

Lots of things involve timing: our careers, our relationships. As we celebrate the birth of Christ I want to think a little bit about God's timing in our lives.

My becoming a Christian was a matter of timing. My parents were tenants on a farm in Oklahoma in a community where there were no religious people, no church, no outstanding religious families. The dustbowl and the depression came. We moved up to northern Illinois for work in a factory and rented a house across from the Tri-City Packing Company, one block from a little Baptist church that knew how to reach out to people and love them. I wonder what would have happened had there been no depression. I wonder if sometimes the timing of God is in the moving around of people.

I have wondered often about Barbara and my getting together. She is from south Georgia and I am from northeast Oklahoma. She was working in Nashville. I was thinking about going to seminary in Louisville. A woman said to her, "Barbara, I think you ought to go to Southwestern. That's the place for you." Some of my friends said, "I think you ought to go to Southwestern." I went down there and just felt in place. I had dated so many people for whom marriage would have been a disaster for both of us. In my third semester, Thanksgiving vacation, someone introduced me to Barbara Burke from Georgia. We went to a meeting together and fell in love. Timing.