Friday, December 19: “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” by the Jackson Five
In this song, Santa Claus is presented as an omniscient being. “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good,” et cetera. He’s ready to categorize each of us as either naughty or nice, and to distribute gifts accordingly.
Santa’s entire paradigm is about our moral performance, and whether that performance has been good enough to merit a bunch of material objects as a reward. Meanwhile, the story of Christianity is the story of a God who was so motivated—not by a close inspection of our merit and performance, but by his profound love for us—that he came to make a way for us to connect with Him. As Romans 5:8 puts it, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
For Christians, the season of Advent highlights this fact of reality: until Jesus comes back, we will never be fully at home in this world. And both now and then, we remain utterly dependent on God to meet us, and provide us with what we need to be fulfilled—no matter what side of Santa’s list we might technically belong on.
Conversation starter:
“Why do you think the idea of Santa Claus took off in popular culture?”
Thanks for listening to Day 13 of Advent: For the Record! All of our resources are funded by donors like you. We’d love for you to consider becoming a part of our community of givers. Check us out at Axis.org!