The Problem with Santa Claus

Christmas in July. Not really. I just watched "Fred Claus." Fred is Nick's older and obnoxious conniving brother played by Vince Vaughn--a real stretch. The movie is probably aimed at young teens. It is safe and fairly funny. The thing that hit me was something that Fred said and did. He originally goes to the north pole to get some money from Nick for a business con he is working on. Forced to work for Nick to earn the money he is placed in charge of the naughty and nice list. Because of a relationship with a little boy back in his home town he finds that this orphaned little guy has been placed in an orphanage and jumped to the top of the naughty list.

Fred changes the rules and stamps all kids as nice instead of naughty. This throws the toy production for a loop since they don't have the capacity to make toys for this huge number of children. Nick and Fred argue over this but Fred has the best point by saying that all the kids are good, maybe they just hit a rough spot and were going through a tough time; which is the case with his little orphan friend.

Here is the twist. Santa has always separated the good from the bad kids. Is this performance based acceptance? If you were a good kid for that year, you were guaranteed gifts Christmas morning. I think this has led to a wrong view for a lot of people. God is not like this at all. So Nick is wrong. Santa is wrong! But so is Fred. Not all the kids are good. Paul argues in Romans that no one is good in God's eyes. All have sinned and far from acceptable to God in thought and behavior. We have all sinned against God.

We are all on the naughty list.

So none of us deserve gifts. Santa gives coal. God allows those who die in their rebellion to go to hell and burn in the fires. The second is a much nastier and eternal torment. Santa accepts kids based on good behavior. God cannot because we are born in sin and can never earn acceptance by behavior. We cannot make up for being being born in sin by doing good. The good cannot outweigh being stuck in sin thanks to Adam and Eve. We are born as humans so we cannot do something to make us eagles. We cannot change ourselves. So it is with our sin. We need some outside help in a massive way.

God sent Jesus as the Christmas gift to take us off the naughty list when we trust in Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice for our sin. The ultimate gift from God is not for those who are good but to make us good in God's eyes by faith when we accept this grace. God is a lot different than Santa.

Thanks be to God for this grace. Read Romans chapters 3-8 and Ephesians 2 to get a bigger picture of this.

Let's all run to Jesus and thank him for this amazing Christmas-Easter gift. Jesus is Lord of all; even if, some or many do not believe. We cannot change the facts. We cannot tell God what He can or cannot do. God loves us.