Santa Claus and Jesus Christ

The Man in Red

I was in fourth grade when someone broke the news to me. We were at lunch. The girl sitting in front of me was drinking from an "Aqua Pod," one of those wonky grenade shaped water-bottles. Rumor had it that she didn't believe in Santa Claus anymore. Scandalous. I thought she was crazy! Some bumptious skeptic trying to draw attention to herself. But her doubt was enough to plant the seeds of doubt in me. I couldn't help but wonder: is this all too good to be true? A jolly man dressed in red flying around the world with reindeer, eating buckets full of cookies, giving coal to bad little girls and boys. Say it ain't so...

I use to love the mystery that surrounded Santa Claus. But my faith in Santa Claus quickly moved from doubting his presence, to utterly denying his existence. He isn't real. The chimney-man had been snuffed. 

In hindsight, there's something quite troubling about the "Santa-myth." The capacity for faith and belief within a child's heart is quickly attached to something that is evidently too good to be true, and then proved to be utterly false. Santa Claus turns out to be my mother waking up an hour early, placing gifts under the tree and throwing the leftover cookies into the trashcan. Despite all of the warmth and joy this imaginary reality brings, there's a slippery slope on the backside of the sleigh--that is, not only disbelief, but unbelief. What troubles me isn't the quick "one-two-punch" we pull on our young people, but rather, the abuse and neglect of our own capacity for human faithfulness and child-like wonder and awe. 

"I do not doubt Santa Claus"

Before saying more on this, I'd like to distinguish between disbelief, or doubt, and unbelief, or a rejection of belief. I do not doubt Santa Claus. I reject belief in Santa Claus. I am in "unbelief" if you will, in regards to this man in red. Not any harm on this notion though. I reject belief in the tooth fairy, in the Easter bunny, in magic jumping beans, and in white-chocolate covered pretzels (well, not as much the latter, but you get the point). Yet doubt is a much more nuanced experience. Doubt is a lack of conviction. It is an act of questioning, a seeking for a greater resolution or certainty. Here's my question, if in moving to reject belief in Santa Claus (as we should, he is not real--although this is not to suggest that we should refuse to encourage young children with the "Santa-myth"... that's a different conversation), do we also move to reject Christmas, that is the Feast and Celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ? 

The Feast of Christmas celebrates the Incarnation. God takes on flesh in the person of Jesus. The Divine becomes one of us as the Blessed Virgin Mary conceives the Son of God. That is Mary is "overshadowed" by the Holy Spirit, conceives Christ, and gives birth to the prophesied child, Emmanuel, or "God with us." Jesus is upheld as the living God, born of the Virgin Mary in a manger. Christmas not only celebrates this historical birth, but the Church also holds fast and firm in faith to the fact that Jesus is born among and within believers. He is our true gift from God. He comes in humility and silence in the shadow of the night under the guidance of the stars in Bethlehem. He comes into the world, born a babe for us. Christmas is the coming of Jesus, or "God saves," not simply into the world, but into our hearts. An incarnation made especially present in the sacraments, especially during the celebration of the Eucharist.

He Whose Blood Ran Red

The incarnation is just the beginning. From this then follows the life of Jesus, his hidden life at home with Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, his ministry, and ultimately his death on the cross and Resurrection. But evidently, these "events" or experiences are objects of belief. They demand faith. They cannot and should not simply be understood as a "given" or as something to be half-heartedly assured of. The question is--do I believe? Do I truly believe in the fullness of God in that manger? If so, what does that say about the life he led, the life which he bled, and his life once dead?

I find the parallel here between Santa and Jesus quite fascinating because we live in a world where belief in Christ seems to have become another kitschy QVC myth. Jesus is a fascinating idea, but as God, as Lord, as Savior? 

One response could be this: "Nope, that's not for me." 

But let's get a few things straight: I do not have the luxury to decide whether or not Santa Claus is real. Nor do I have the luxury to decide whether or not Jesus lived. And to the next degree, I also do not have the freedom to decide whether or not Jesus is Lord; that is, God. 

Either he is, or he is not. My response lies in my free decision to either have faith or to reject faith. It is as Herbert McCabe writes: “God cannot fail to love us, whatever we do. But we can fail to believe this.” We can fail to believe in the love of God and the extent to which God would attempt to make this love not only accessible, but known and present among us. Christmas is a season where we are faced with the question: if God exists, does he really care about me? If he does, how far is God willing to go to make this known to me? His response is an infant, his Son. Given over to us, so that we would know Him. 

This Christmas (let alone everyday!) we have a decision to make. We can choose to walk with Christ, or we can bury our dead, we can keep our hand to the plow. We can become so consumed with our work life or our family life or our future ambitions that we neglect to realize that the Spirit of God meets us here and now, and he invites us into a deep, loving, personal relationship where he calls us by name and takes us home as his own. We can settle for gifts that will grime and tarnish over time, or we can accept the gift of God given to humanity: Jesus, "the way, the truth, the life." 

We have the freedom to decide to believe or to choose unbelief. Faith is a knowing that there exists a God who is love and a God who loves us. And faith exists alongside of, not in spite of, doubt. Since faith is "an assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). We shouldn't ignore the fact that there is an implicit layer of doubt within one who has faith because faith necessitates a resolute longing for the realization of the invisible, of the unseen. If one were certain, there would be no need for faith. A person of faith is not without questions, but rather exists in a state of loving trust, which is a response to the questions. 

Doubt and Faith

"Both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief, if they do not hide from themselves the truth of their being. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief; for the one, faith is present against doubt; for the other, through doubt and in the form of doubt." Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity 

Doubt does not escape people of faith. The question, then is: what do we do with doubt? Is doubt seen through faith or is faith seen through doubt? 

I don't think we have the privilege of unbelief or ignorance when it comes to Christmas, the Incarnation, or to Jesus Christ. To deny belief, to choose unbelief, is to reject faith and doubt. Jesus Christ cannot and should not be put up as another elf on the shelf. He is not another Christmas decoration, nor is he another Santa Claus. 

This Christmas, we shouldn't be afraid of faith or of doubt. Our questions bring about answers only in so far as we are willing to ask them. But if we are willing to ask questions, if we are open to doubt, we must be open to be questioned ourselves. And the question that Christ asks his disciples in Matthew's Gospel, I imagine he still asks us today: "Who do you say that I am?" 

And we are fit to respond freely or to reject. Our response, our asking and our being asked, God willing, marks the birth of a relationship made for eternity.