Santa Clause Jesus Christ is Coming to Town

This morning I’d like to talk about one of the most fascinating and well-known figures of the Christmas season, none other than the Big Guy in Red, the King of Jolly, the Gift Giver from the North Pole, the man whom every little kid and most big kids would love to meet: Santa Claus.

I remember in my childhood putting out cookies and milk for Santa on Christmas Eve. Often I would try and stay up and catch him in the act, but it never failed that before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

And then in the morning, there would always be an empty glass and a clean plate, and presents. I figured if he ate and drank at every house they way he did at mine, no wonder he was so fat!

Santa Claus has been the subject of mulch speculation and interest for many, many years. But one of the more influential theological texts about him was written in 1934 by J. Fred Coats and Henry Gillespie. Maybe you’ve heard it.  It goes like this:

Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, You better not pout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town.

He’s making a list, and checking it twice, Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice, Santa Claus is coming to town.

He sees when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake.
He knows if you’ve been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake!

O, you better watch out! You better not cry. You better not pout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town.

Truth be told, we actually know a lot of things about this Santa Claus. We know that he is an amazingly prolific industrialist who manufactures untold quantities of toys in less-than-ideal working conditions and with an antiquated work force, I might add.

We know that he is a fantastically successful entrepreneur who employs thousands on a yearly basis, then expanding that to include probably tens of thousands of seasonal workers, all of whom imitate their boss when it comes to clothing and hairstyles.

We know that the only thing that exceeds his generosity—after all, he provides toys and goodies for all the world’s children—is his waistline, and here, of course, we see that even Santa isn’t perfect, and he could probably use the help of Jenny Craig or Jason, the guy from Subway Sandwiches. But, hey, Santa isn’t the only horizontally challenged guy around, right?

We also know that Santa is a stupendously brilliant aeronautical engineer and aviation pioneer whose sleigh technology I’ll just bet both the Air Force and NASA would love to get their hands on.

Santa would make a great poster child, or rather, a poster old guy, for the AARP: he’s ancient, more or less, but can you name anyone who works harder, produces more, or is more beloved, than that old geezer?

Any way you look at it, Santa is one amazing dude. And just to cover all my bases here, yes, we know that Santa would not be what he is today were it not for the backing and support of Mrs. Claus.

The one amazing fact about Santa that we haven’t yet noted is perhaps the most important. It has to do with his clerical skill. It has to do with THE LIST.

Every year, Santa checks up on all the girls and boys. Every year, Santa observes both the daytime and nighttime habits of young humans everywhere.

Every year, Santa verifies his data not once, but twice. Every year, Santa divides the entire childhood population into two camps: naughty or nice, bad or good.

And for each and every child, the whole enterprise of Christmas rises or falls on which side of THE LIST your name is on.

Now, I believe in Santa, and I love Santa, and Santa adds a lot to Christmas, but as a representative of what Christmas is all about, I got a problem with Santa. And it has to do with THE LIST.

You see, some people, maybe even most people, believe that Santa is a lot like God. He’s been around a long time, he’s hard to see but you know he’s there, he brings good stuff to life, he makes lots and lots of people very, very happy. In those ways, okay, Santa is a lot like God.

But, if the song is right, where Santa and God part company is with THE LIST. You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, because Santa has THE LIST. And that is how many people see God, too.

Yes, there is much in scripture about the fact that God desperately wants us to be good. Yes, God has given us his moral and ethical law as the definitive and absolute guide to righteousness.

And yes, God judges everyone’s heart and God takes our lack of goodness very, very seriously. But the Christian message is that beyond the imperative of your need and my need to learn to live righteously, there is God’s unconditional, never-ending, steadfast love.

There is a fundamental theological question that everyone must decide about in his or her lifetime. Are you good enough to earn God’s love, or not? How much evil can you tolerate, how many sins can you commit, how bad can you be, and still be on God’s good side?

When you meet God on Judgment Day, will you be able to talk God into letting you off with a warning, or will God throw the book at you?

Do you only have to be 51% good, or do you have to have a larger margin of goodness for God to let you walk through those Pearly Gates?

Does God grade on a curve? No, the answer is that God grades on a cross.

The Christian answer to that fundamental theological question is that you and I can never, never, never be good enough to earn or deserve God’s love. And that’s okay, because God’s love is not decided by what you have done, but by who he is.

God’s love is not based on your ability to fulfill a contract that stipulates how much good you have to do so that when you die God’s love will kick in and you’ll get to heaven. God’s contract with you is one-sided: He loves you. Your job is just to accept that fact.

Here is how Paul put it to the Christians in Ephesus: “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Our problem is that we live in a world and a reality that exists on the basis of conditional love.

“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” is the operational policy of most human relationships. You be good and I’ll be sure to put you on my good list. You be bad and I’ll be sure to blackball you.

We know how that all works, don’t we?

Every one of us here can think of someone, maybe lots of someones, who are on the wrong side of our lists. And every one of us here can think of lots of lists where our own names appear on the negative side, right?

Every one of us here knows what it is to live with the burden of sin that we have committed and the burden of sin that we have not forgiven.

That’s why, as far as our church tradition is concerned, every single week when we come to worship God, we need to confess our sin and forgive the sin of others.

That is why Jesus taught us a prayer that goes, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.”

The Apostle Paul usually highlighted the same two words with which he greeted the people in the many churches that he founded and to which he wrote constantly.

Do you know what they are?

The first word is Grace: it’s all about God’s unconditional love. And the second is Peace: it’s all about the peace that God has made possible between him and us through his grace.

“Grace to you and peace, from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul could think of nothing better to say because there was nothing better to say.

Brennan Manning, an alcoholic priest, quotes John Claypool: “We all have shadows and skeletons in our backgrounds. But listen, there is something bigger in this world than we are and that something bigger is full of grace and mercy, patience and ingenuity.

“The moment the focus of your life shifts from your badness to his goodness and the question becomes not ‘What have I done’ but ‘What can he do?’ release from remorse can happen; miracle of miracles, you can forgive yourself because you are forgiven, accept yourself because you are accepted, and begin to start building up the very places you once tore down.

“There is grace to help in every time of trouble. That grace is the secret to being able to forgive ourselves. Trust it.”

Manning goes on to tell this story: Four years ago in a large city in the far West, rumors spread that a certain Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus.

The reports reached the archbishop. He decided to check her out. There is always a fine line between the authentic mystic and the lunatic fringe.

“Is it true, ma’am, that you have visions of Jesus?” asked the cleric.

“Yes,” the woman replied simply.

“Well, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession.”

The woman was stunned. “Did I hear you right, bishop? You actually want me to ask Jesus to tell me the sins of your past?”

“Exactly. Please call me if anything happens.”

Ten days later the woman notified her spiritual leader of a recent apparition. “Please come,” she said.

Within the hour the archbishop arrived. He trusted eye-to-eye contact. “You just told me on the telephone that you actually had a vision of Jesus. Did you do what I asked?”

“Yes, bishop, I asked Jesus to tell me the sins you confessed in your last confession.”

The bishop leaned forward with anticipation. His eyes narrowed. “What did Jesus say?’

She took his hand and gazed deep into his eyes. “Bishop,” she said, “these are his exact words: ‘I CAN’T REMEMBER.’”

Santa Claus is coming to town, with lots of toys for good little girls and boys, who are on THE LIST. But Jesus Christ is also coming to town, with a present of his own, for all the girls and boys who haven’t been so good.

“Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And God echoes, “For unto us is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Amen.