During this Christmas season, we usually get together with some other families and spend a couple of days together. Someone always brings out a jigsaw puzzle. We set up the card table and scatter the pieces. It's not like we spend all day huddled around the puzzle. We walk by, we eat, we grab a piece, connect it, eat, and finally, after much fanfare, celebration, and food, the puzzle is completed when that last piece is slipped into place. Then we eat. What a life!

Except those times when you come down to the very end and there's one piece missing. Isn't that awful? You never give yourself a high five for the 999 pieces already in place. No, it's that one last piece of the puzzle that has you so vexed.

Sometimes I look at this story of the birth of Jesus the same way — like some huge jig…