It’s Christmas, and the struggle to stay off the “naughty” list and cling to the “nice” list is over. Parents who have used Santa’s “naughty/nice” list as a means of behavioral control must now utilize another method to reward good conduct and punish the bad.
Various websites exist to aid parents who use the naughty/nice list as a behavioral fulcrum. I typed my name on one of them and found I was doing okay but could listen to grown-ups more. When I typed in my wife’s name, I discovered she needed to brush her teeth more often. A bit suspicious of that (since Lori has excellent dental hygiene), I checked on Vladamir Putin and found he too was lacking in tooth brushing consistency, though otherwise, he appeared to be in good stead with Santa. Then I snooped on how ousted Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad was getting along. Like me, he only needs to listen to grown-ups more. Oh well…
Of course, it’s all fun; such websites are designed for parents to play along with kids who still believe in a Santa that keeps current tabs on a “naughty/nice” list.
Unfortunately, Santa and his list too easily morph into the image of a God who has another list of the people He likes and those He doesn’t. If my behavior is bad on one day, God doesn’t like me so much. If it’s good on another day, God loves me. Many are those who struggle under the burden of a performance-based religion. It gives rise to fear on the one hand or Pharisaism on the other. Or both at the same time.
And it’s diametrically opposed to the true meaning of Christmas.
Jesus Christ was born to die, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. As C.S. Lewis said, “The Son of God became man to enable men to become sons of God.”
That’s why Jesus came: to bring us to God. On our own, we can never be good enough to enter God’s presence. We need someone to go before us, to intercede on our behalf, allowing us entry into God’s presence. Jesus Christ lived the perfect life I could not, and in doing so, He escorts me into the presence of the loving Father.
The bad news is that my niceness is never nice enough to earn God’s love. But the best news is that my badness can never be bad enough to make God love me less. It’s called unconditional love, and the birth of Christ and his life, culminating in the Cross, is the epitome of that love. God sending the Son to a rebellious lot like us, who didn’t love Him and repeatedly fail to love Him for who He is, is the perfect example of unconditional love.
I love Christmas; it reminds me that there is hope for people like me. Jesus said: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).
The birth of Christ obliterates the “naughty/nice” list. The stable in which Jesus was born was open to all, including that person at the top of your resentment list, and even the likes of a Stalin, a Hitler, a Bin Laden, as well as you and me, if only we are willing to leave our “naughty/nice” credentials outside the stable, bow low enough to enter the door and humbly kneel before the baby in the manger.
And then, the surprise of all Christmas surprises: we find our names on the only list that matters.
Amen!