Cultural Commentary,  O, Humanity!,  The Bible

Santa is not God, and God is not Santa

Last Christmas Eve, my 8-year-old grandson asked me if I had ever tried to catch Santa.

“Well,” after figuring out what he was asking, I said, “I’ve tried staying awake all night but always fall asleep.”

Brightening, he told me he had some ideas how to catch Santa.

“If you have a chimney, sprinkle powder or flour on the floor in front of the fireplace and in the morning you can see Santa’s footprints.”

My grandson’s house does not have a fireplace, yet in his imagination, he could see just how such a plan might work at my house.

He also thought of setting up a video camera to catch Santa.

The fact that he was thinking these thoughts made me wonder how much longer he will believe in Santa Claus. Next year, will he still want to catch Santa in the act of delivering his presents?

The wonder of Christmas seen through the eyes of children keeps adults busy on Christmas Eve. Toys to assemble, packages to wrap, and stockings to stuff, parents are far too busy to think about catching Santa.

“We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.” 

Laura Ingalls Wilder 

Yet parents look to see in the eyes of their young children the sparkle of a hoped for Christmas. Throughout the Christmas season, people hope for something magical and wondrous and lasting in place of the letdown when the bills arrive next month.

All these years, still I wonder as I wander

The day after Christmas, I wondered when this same little boy will learn that although Santa Claus has become synonymous with Christmas, and men wearing red suits and white beards impersonate Santa, Santa and his reindeer’s flight around the entire world on Christmas Eve to deliver gifts to boys and girls who have been nice––not naughty––is a childhood fantasy.

When did you stop believing in Santa?

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

Shirley Temple

I wonder as I wander whether my grandson and children like him who believe in Santa will question if God is real when they learn Santa is not.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:1–4

“The Lord of Terrible Aspect” vs. A Jolly Old Soul

The Old Testament paints a terrifying picture of God––a consuming fire. This picture is meant to make us tremble.

“You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, ‘the lord of terrible aspect,’ [quote from Dante’s Divine Comedy] is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, not the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.”   [emphasis mine]

––C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain 
  • terrible––awesome; exciting extreme alarm or intense fear
  • aspect––appearance to the eye or mind
  • persistent––not stopping or going away
  • provident––having or showing foresight; providing carefully for the future
  • venerable––commanding respect; worthy of veneration or reverence

The words C.S. Lewis uses emphasize that any god you and I might conjure in our imagination fails to capture the awe-inspiring, terrifying, and worthy of worship God who is. God who made the world is God who for his name’s sake alone stakes his claim and his reputation on the people he loves. And because he loves, he keeps giving and giving and giving again.

He Giveth More Grace
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.  
Annie J. Grace

Giving and Receiving Gifts

Santa gives gifts to reward good behavior.

God gives his gift of eternal life in spite of bad behavior.

The Bible says God gave his Son Jesus, Immanuel (God with us), sent into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. [1]

God remains involved in his world, aware of our everyday concerns. Including the way you and I choose to celebrate Christmas.

Yet God is not Father Christmas. God is not Dear Abby. God is not the government. God is not Santa.

God is not an extension of our imagination. God exists wholly separate from mankind and the world that he created. Yet he gave us Jesus.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” [2]

His footprints can be seen everywhere people try to catch him at his work.  

[1] John 3:16, 17

[2] John 1:1, 14

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