Luke 2:9-11
What Would Santa Say?
The following sermon is credited to one Matthew Rogers has posted on SermonCentral under the same title. I very much enjoyed his message and personalized it for our church.
Introduction
For the next four Sunday mornings leading up to Christmas, I want to bring a series of messages that will hopefully raise some questions in your mind concerning the holiday we celebrate and the way we do. I want to bring four persons into our presence by asking the question, "What Would (this individual) Say?" This morning we are going to ask that of dear old Saint Nick.
The legend of jolly old St. Nick, or Santa Claus, began with a real person: a man history has come to name St. Nicholas, a Christian who lived many centuries ago. Very little is known about St. Nicholas with great certainty, except that during the early part of the 4th century he was the bishop of the church of Myra, a city on the southern coast of Asia Minor.
Tradition says that St. Nicholas was put in prison because of his faith during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor, Diocietian. He was later released when Constantine the Great became emperor and proclaimed Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire and accepted faith for himself. I use Christian and Christianity loosely here, as the historical accounts of the early Catholic church as being Christian. Because of his reputation for generosity and compassion St. Nicholas has come to exemplify the spirit of giving at Christmas time.
His transformation into Santa Claus began in Germany among Protestant churches where he was called Kriss Kringle, derived from Christkindle, which means Christ child. Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam introduced the legend to America. They knew of him as Sint Nikolaas or Sinter Klaas, which soon became known here as Santa Claus. Our modern day conception of Santa and the myth surrounding him with red suit, reindeer, sleigh and portly size originated in the 1800’s here in America through the stories of Washington Irving, the cartoons of Thomas Nast and the 1822 poem by Clement Moore, which begins, "Twas the night before Christmas…"
If Santa were here with us today, what might he tell us about how to celebrate Christmas? I think he might tell us to …
Take a Look at Your Focus
In many homes today, even in many of ours, there are really two holidays that are celebrated on December 25th: Christmas and X-mas. What many of us have done too is to combine the two, so that we have the best of both worlds.
Every December the shopping season is marked with people braving all sorts of weather, some will take off work, others will miss church services and do all sorts of things to get ready for X-mas. They will look for cards and gifts for their relatives and friends. We’ll spend money we don’t have to buy presents for people we hardly get along with and decorate our homes and lawns and so forth. But as the month wears on, the preparation begins to take its toll. Many will grow tired and ready for it all to be over with. There will be some who continue on even under tremendous strain. We’ll overeat, stay up too late and make ourselves sick trying to pull off the day.
But listen, that’s X-mas. Christmas takes place on the same day, but it is difficult to celebrate for all the distraction of X-mas. Remember the holiday classic by Dr. Suess, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas?" In his story, the Grinch steals all the presents, decorations and food in the little town of Whoville on Christmas Eve. By doing this he thought he could prevent Christmas from coming. But sitting alone with all the things he stole up on top of a hill overlooking the town, a strange thing happened. Christmas still came. Why? Because Christmas comes without the presents, the decorations and the food. Just like many other people, the Grinch was confused. He didn’t steal Christmas, he stole X-mas.
I know that it is difficult and I’m not calling for anybody to be a radical fanatic and boycott our Christmas traditions, but I think we need to make a conscientious and disciplined effort as children of God at this time of year to keep the focus of December 25th on Christmas – the coming of our Savior into this world in a miraculous birth rather than on X-mas.
If you didn’t get a single present – you could still celebrate the day for all it is intended to be – a celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You won’t find Him prominently displayed in many of the stores you visit during the next few weeks. You see, the focus of that holiday isn’t on Jesus.
I wonder, if Santa were here today, if he wouldn’t look at all of the hype and say, "Hey, take a look around, when all of this is packed up and gone until next year, the empty faces, the meaningless living and the lack of love will still be there. If you want relief from all of that – you won’t find it in X-mas. You need to focus on Jesus."
If Santa were here today, maybe he would point us to Colossians 3:1-2,
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."
Take a Look at Your Faith
Some people work pretty hard at making Santa seem real to their children so that they will believe in him. How have I approached the subject in my own home? I never told them he was real, and I haven’t worked too hard at telling them he’s not real. I have always assumed that if my kids grew up to believe in Santa Claus, they had bigger problems than I could deal with anyway. However, there are a lot of parents, even Christian parents who seem to work very hard at all of this Santa stuff.
In some homes the presents are not put under the tree until late on Christmas Eve, after the children have gone to bed. And that is after the little ones have set out milk and cookies! Then on Christmas morning they find an assortment of gifts and surprises, an empty plate of cookies and an empty milk glass, along with a stocking full of candy and fun. Now I realize all of that can be fun, but just think, if we parents worked as hard at making Jesus seem real to our children as we do Santa, how much better off we would be!
Here’s some reasons why believing in Santa Claus takes a lot of faith:
There are approximately two billion children in the world. However, since Santa doesn’t visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million children. At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each home.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming Santa travels east to west. This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the presents, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the tree, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.
Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth, we are now talking about .78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second – 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, only moves at 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run about 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child has nothing more than a medium sized Lego set, the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the flying reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, Santa would need 360,000 of them to pull the load. The number of reindeer increases the load even more, about another 54,000 tons, making the load of Santa’s sleigh and reindeer roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth ship. (How would you like that sitting on your roof?)
600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – which would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In other words, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in 1/1000th of a second, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G’s. A 250 pound Santa would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, well…
Let me ask you something – in your home, when the preacher’s not around, when church isn’t part of the equation, when its just you and your kids, do you spend time teaching them about the reality of a Savior? It takes more faith to believe in Santa Claus than it does to believe in Jesus, but which do we spend more time discussing and showing in our homes?
If Santa were among us this morning, I wonder if he wouldn’t point us to the 10th chapter of Romans, which tells us that
"faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
How will those you love the most place their faith in a Savior if they don’t have the opportunity to hear about Him from you?
Take a Look at Your Giving
I want you to do a simple little exercise. I want you to figure a rough guestimate of your holiday spending. Figure how much you might spend on presents, on food and decorations, on cards and so forth. Just figure a rough number. I talked to a lady recently who told me her family spent about $3,000 last year just on gifts for her family. That’s not counting what went in the yard in lights and on the table in food. If you buy 10 presents at $50 each, then you’ve got at least $500.
Now I want you to figure what you give to the Lord through tithes and offerings over the course of a year. Some of us give the same amount every time and it is easy to multiply out, but others may give varying amounts, so you may have to guess a little.
Now you’re comparing your spending for one holiday to your annual giving. How does it compare? I want to remind you that all through the Scriptures, when God got a hold of His people, they gave. When people were right with God in the Old Testament, they gave. They gave in the New Testament, and they are still giving today.
I’ll not spend a lot of time talking about tithes and offerings this morning, but I want you to know that it is a rare breed of Christian today who gives a genuine tithe to the Lord. By tithe I mean 10% of your gross income. Studies show that only 3% of all believers are giving a full tithe. What about you? Do you work as hard to please the Lord with your weekly or monthly giving as you do those you buy presents for at Christmas?
We all know the reaction we are looking for when our loved ones open the gifts we give them. We all want that "Wow! This is great!" expression from them instead of that "Thanks, I’ve always wanted one of these…" looks. Well what about God? What is His reaction to our giving?
If Santa were here today, perhaps he would tell us to consider our giving and remind us that even when the churches of Paul’s day were lacking food and decent shelter, they gave to the Lord’s work anyway – why? Because…
"He that sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and he that sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Every man according as he purposes in his heart should give in such a manner, not grudgingly, or with a twisted arm, because God loves a cheerful giver."
Take a Look at Your Love
Think about it, why do people love Santa Claus? Because of what they get. What has any man or woman or boy or girl ever had to do for Santa? Why do people love angels? Because of how they benefit from them. What has an angel ever required of a man? Nothing!
On the other hand, what about Jesus? Sure we love Him because of what we receive, but the love of Jesus is costly! It will cost you something to love Jesus the way He wants you to love Him.
When King David wanted to build an altar where the temple of Solomon would later sit, the landowner wanted to give it to him, but David refused to take it. He told the man that he could not offer sacrifices to God when it cost him nothing to do so. He would not take the free ride, but that’s exactly what so many have chosen to do today.
Jesus doesn’t want to be one among many. He said that He is the way. He said that He has to be first. He said that we must take up our cross and follow Him – and crosses mean death. Do we only love those who are easy to love? Jesus said that its easy to love your friends, but what about your enemies? Can you love them too?
I want you to remember during this time of year as we think about the birth of Christ that everything He did – from leaving heaven to dying on that cross – was the ultimate act of love for a world that was lost. How can we claim to love Him when we have trouble loving those in our lives? I want to agree with John, who said, "Don’t just love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth." If you really love God – if you really love your family and friends, if you really love your enemies, then prove it.
Conclusion
I don’t know if what has been said has made you to think about what Christmas is all about or not. It is my earnest desire that Christ be the focal point of this month in your life. It is my hope that you teach your children to have faith in Christ and what He can do, that you would consider your giving, and not just consider it, but begin to do it or increase it for the Lord, and that you would begin to love the Lord and others as He tells us in His Word.
Imagine the Christmas story going this way:
And there were in the same country children keeping watch over their stockings by the fireplace. And, lo! Santa Claus came upon them; and they were sore afraid. And Santa said unto them: Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which be to all people who can afford them. For unto you will be given great feasts of turkey, dressing and cake; and many presents; and this shall be a sign unto you, ye shall find the presents, wrapped in bright paper, lying beneath a tree adorned with tinsel, colored balls and lights. And suddenly, there will be with you a great multitude of relatives and friends, praising you and saying, Thank you so much, it was just what I wanted.
I’m glad it didn’t happen that way. I’m glad that Luke says,
"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."
Is this Christ child your Lord? Have you ever accepted Him as your Savior? You can do that today. Santa’s not here today, but the Holy Spirit is, and He is telling you to repent of your sin of unbelief, of never having placed your faith in Christ, trust Him and you will be saved. He’s telling you that if you’ve accepted Christ but you’ve never followed Him in scriptural baptism you need to do that today. If you’re looking for a church home – you’ll find one right here.
How will you respond to Christ’s invitation today?
