Christmas Day (5)
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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Christmas is an interesting holiday in western culture. It is a holiday you can celebrate whether you are a Christian or completely secular. I think you know what I mean. If you were to draw a picture (maybe you are playing Pictionary) to symbolize the main character of Christmas, who are you going to draw?
Grinch? Almost every NFL game this weekend had at least one fan dressed up like him and he does star in some commercials.
Baby Jesus? As Christians he would undoubtedly be our first choice.
Santa Claus? A very popular figure among children and still admired by many adults.
A favorite Christmas song about Santa Claus tells children, “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why: Santa Clause is coming to town. . . .he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. “
Because Santa gives good gifts to good little girls and boys and the proverbial lump of coal to naughty children.
This reinforces the “opinio legis”. The teaching that the good are rewarded and the evil are punished. Parents will use it to keep their children better behaved during the hectic holiday season.
Many religions are like that as well. A person’s standing before God is dependent on that person’s behavior. Even in Christianity we have a reference to that mindset at times.
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
17 saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. 18 The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great— and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
So is Jesus not much more than a religious Santa Claus? Will he only come to punish evil or reward the good? Is that why he came into the world and why he will return?
No, there is much more to Jesus than that. He can’t only reward and punish based on what we do because as St. Paul reminds us, “All have sinned.” And we confess that we only deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishemnt.
Why then did Jesus come?
John gives us the answer in his prologue to his Gospel.
He writes of the eternal existence and divinity of Jesus when he refers to him as “the Word” who was with and is God from the beginning. He tells us how he participated at creation.
He tells us that John the Baptist witnessed that he came into the world as the Word and as the Light. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
He came to reveal the Father to us. That is what words and light do. He also tells us he came to make his own children of God. But not by our works. “To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
Later in John 3, we have this affirmation of why Jesus came into the world.
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
And so here we see the contrast between law and gospel, between works and faith. between what we do and what Jesus has done for us.
The Santa Claus story emphasizes gifts given to good boy and girls and not so great gifts given to those who are naughty.
The Gospel of Jesus emphasizes that because we are “naughty”, that is sinners; God promised to send Jesus and kept that promise by the Word becoming flesh so that he would do the good things for us, suffer the punishment we deserved, and give us the gift of eternal life through faith in him.
We can’t avoid references to Santa Claus in our culture and caution is taken in addressing the whole culture of “make believe” in reference to this favorite childhood tale. But the real, lasting, and saving message of Christmas that young and old believe and cherish is that Jesus came to save us and he will come again to deliver us to heaven. Amen.