As I sit here this Christmas season wrestling with the
desire to give really fun gifts to my children and the limitations of financial
ability to do so (I love to give good gifts to my children), I ponder and
consider have I shifted the focus of Christmas?
I remember all our Christmas’ past, how I created in our
home a somewhat magical time of Christmas decorating to the full extent, with
lights in and out of the house, playing Christmas music each morning as the
girls got ready for school, baking cookies, sleeping under the just decorated
tree, going all out with the gifts oh and yes, remembering too that it was
Jesus’ birthday. But somehow this just
did not seem to be the focus of our holiday season.
As I was getting a cup of coffee one morning looking up at
the collection of Santa’s (which I have to admit I started as collections for
my girls as well) around my kitchen up on the spaces above my kitchen cupboards
God spoke and revealed to me a play on letters, which he often does to bring
home a lesson. I pass this on to you.
Santa is the icon of gift giving. A beautiful concept and one which we all
embrace and one which we are tempted to make the focus of Christmas, especially
if you have a family of young children at this stage in your life or of young grandchildren
who believe in Santa. What a magical
time of make believe and good. But is
it…?
Let’s take the word Santa and remove the N right out of the
middle and put it in its place at the end of the word and Santa then reads
Satan. Now before you think I am evil by
even thinking such a thought let us consider for a moment who and what Satan
is.
Satan is the master deceiver, king of distraction and lover
of lies. What better way to distract
than to come disguised as something good (gift giving is good) increasing focus
on a man, an icon of gift giving to distract, named Santa.
I am not saying we must remove Santa from the scene. I ran this thought by my daughter with two
little ones and her response to me was “ Mom you can’t just take Santa out of
the picture, I have such good memories of all that Santa represented from when
I was a little girl”.
So, I inquired of God asking what I was supposed to do with
this concept that just seems downright mean.
While it seems a little drastic to completely remove Santa from the
Christmas scene what I heard was put him in his place, at the end of the celebration,
as an after thought rather than in the middle of the season.
We have slowly been influenced by the world and Hallmark and
marketing strategists to worship the idol of “gift giving”. Think about this for a moment. From the beginning of December we begin the
mad rush to make our lists, check them twice, running around being grumpy and
nice. We put such pressure on ourselves
to buy that “perfect” gift for everyone on our list that before we know it we
are consumed with “gift giving”, “party
preparing” that in trying to do all this “good” we become grumpy, stressed out
and downright…”evil” to those we love.
In a sense, instead of Jesus rising up in us, Satan rises up
on us, on our backs, with his hands over our eyes blindly leading us into his
trap.
“N” stands for Nothingness, in the middle of the holiday
season it turns a celebration meant to embrace the most marvelous gift of all,
Forgiveness born out of Love and turns it into nothingness, just another reason
to consume and overindulge. “N” also
stands for Naivety, for a nation that is naïve and unaware of it’s idols and
how it is being influenced by them.
Without taking Santa right out of Christmas let us wake up,
seeing the clever disguise for what it is and rethink what our emphasis is
putting the “N” of Santa where it rightly belongs…at the end of the word and in
so doing recognize the deception and distraction Santa has become and reclaim
for ourselves and our nation The Gift. Rather than worshipping the idol of
“gift giving” worship The Gift, the one perfect gift given long ago on a cold
winters night that was so deep, given by the true and perfect gift giver and
true Father of Christmas, God Most High, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
(If you then who are evil know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven
give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11 NIV)
And as the Santa in my picture has his focus on the star let
us keep our focus this Christmas season on the star that leads us to The Gift….
Celebrate the child who is the light…..Merry Christmas to
all and to all a peace filled life…..
