The other morning after picking up the mail at the post office there was an abundance of Christmas cards. Later on in the morning I was sitting in my church office and the coffee urge arose in me. So I called my wife and announced, "Say, wife, I’ll be home in a few minutes for some coffee and Christmas cookies ... and, by the way, I picked up the mail and there’s a real bunch of Christmas greetings." She replied, "Great, see you soon!" I couldn’t help but retort, "Are you glad because you will see the mail a bit sooner or because I’ll be coming home?" She hesitated at such a dumb question and then dutifully responded, "Because you will be here."

But if God asks the question we had better not dismiss it as silly or irrelevant. He might say, "Are you glad that Christmas is coming because of t…