Hello everybody
Christmas is upon us again!! How time flies, I remember writing my
Christmas article last Christmas on having fun during Christmas. You
can check it out here. I love Christmas, I love the festive mood, the
reunion with friends and family and the general magic that comes
along with the atmosphere. As a kid, part of that magic was Santa.
All the movies and songs portrayed him as real and on his way. While
most Nigerian kids didn't really believe in Santa (they were too
many at different places at the same time, plus our parents didn't make a fuss about it like western parents did) we still kept the
illusion going for the fun and magic of it.
However there is an
aspect of Santa that has evolved from a twisted idea of God. Many
believe God is vengeful and relates with people based on their
behavior. This is the traditional view of any deity and this view was
imposed upon us by the fall of Adam. This is the view that Jesus came
to eradicate. He also came to give us a proper vision of God. It is a God we
could never imagine existed. He is Love. Not that he chooses to Love
or he has love, not even that he loves, but HE IS love. One of the
attribute of Love is that he keeps no records of wrongs (1 Cor. 13)
Beloved, our God is
not Santa. He does not have a naughty or nice list, giving the
naughty nothing and giving the nice their wishes. He lets the Sun
shine on both the good and the wicked, and he is kind to ungrateful
and evil people (Matthew 5:43; Luke 6: 32-36). God is not a book
keeper. The only book he keeps is the list of those who have chosen
Life over Death; Jesus over Religion; The Finished Work over self
effort. Any person who ends up in the lake of fire on the day of
judgment ends up there because they have chosen to save themselves by
their good deeds rather than accept that they have been saved by
Grace ( Ephesians 2: 8-10)
The essence of
Christmas is not about a God who gives good gifts to the good people
but about a God who saw a perverse world heading for self destruction
and instead of accepting that, he came and joined us in the person of
Jesus. He took our destruction and evil on himself and conquered it
in every form. In that way, he redeemed us from our own evil.
Even the original
Saint Nicholas (from whom we get Santa Claus) was a man who went
about giving gifts to destitute children. I don't think he was
keeping a naughty or nice list, and i'm absolutely certain that all
those children weren't nice kids. Let us keep the spirit and intent of Christmas going; the birth of Jesus, giving and being with family
I believe in
Christmas and that kids should enjoy all the magic and fantasy that
accompanies. I don't even think we should make a big deal about
Santa. I mean saying "Santa is Satan" is very uncool and ridiculous come on !! However, I believe we should be conscious of the idea of God
we portray to our children and if Santa is going to conflict with
that idea, we should make sure they get the distinction; God is real,
Santa is fiction and God is not Santa Claus.
Have a Merry
Christmas everybody
