God, the birth of Jesus and Santa Claus

Mark Dery wrote an article on the Las Vegas Weekly titled "The Vast Santanic Conspiracy; is St. Nick the tool of a plot to monstrous to mention?" On face book, this article generated quite a lengthy thread of comment. Part of the issue was whether conservative Christians equated Santa with Satan (Santa being an anagram of Satan). I don't intend to rehash that issue. You can read the article itself at http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2009/dec/24/vast-santanic-conspiracy/.


His article and the thread generated on Facebook got me to thinking about the place of Santa in our Christmas celebrations. As Christians the real purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the arrival of Jesus. We celebrate this as not just the birth of a baby, but the fact that "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son . . ." Therefore the real purpose of Christmas is to worship God for what He has done and to celebrate the birth of Jesus. As a part of this celebration, we exchange gifts with one another. We tell our children that their gifts are from Santa Claus, the mythical person who flies around the world in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer (led by Rudolph the red nosed reindeer). I personally find the myth of Santa a pretty harmless. I enjoyed telling my children about him. We awaited the arrival of Santa with the presents that he would leave with the kids. We also told the children about Jesus. They knew that the purpose of the celebration was the birth of Jesus, not Santa. What is the problem with Santa. I don't think that the problem is Santa at all.


The problem for Christians is when we begin to confuse Santa and God. "You can't mean that! We would never confuse God with Santa," the good Christian cries. Well, of course, we aren't insane. But, many times we see God as a sort of cosmic Santa Clause. God doesn't make any ethical or moral demands on us; he just gives out good gifts to us if we have been "good little girls and boys." I think that even those of us who are believers sometimes even think of God almost myth like as we do Santa. We don't have to fear Santa; enjoy him. But, make sure that you begin to develop your understanding of who God is. Study the Scriptures. Study theological works. Pray and get to know Him. Merry Christmas! I hope that you enjoyed Santa this year. I also hope that your worship was of a loving God who sent His son into the World so that the world could be saved by Him.