SANTA OR SAINT: WE MUST CHOOSE AND NOW

By The Revd Canon Dr J Rosenthal

One person that appears sure of himself in the run-up to Christmas is Santa Claus. Always there – lingering on street corners or in shops bringing out of us the impulse to celebrate, and to celebrate with all that money or credit cards can buy.

In our current rather gloomy economic scenario we are caught in a race for time. We are facing a number of countdown situations, the days of Advent go speedily by as we light our Advent wreath candles and watch with amazement the notices everywhere talking of Christmas sales before the day is even close. In some places, the imposing icon of Christmas, Santa Claus, has made his presence evident in progressively more aggressive ways.  Fewer and fewer religious ornaments and cards are apparent in our shops. The occasional Christmas carol beckons us to hear the message of the angels, but only in passing. Don’t linger, maybe not even in church.  To truly celebrate Advent and its integrity of watching and waiting, we seem to fall behind the society’s calendar that has the Christmas shut-down set for 26th December while the church begins the actual 12 days of Christmas.

Santa Claus has just passed by again.  Has he become Christmas?  What has happened to Mary and Holy Joseph and the babe lying in the manger, and shepherds and carols and all.  Are Frosty the Snowman, I Dreaming of a White Christmas ala Bing Crosby, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Santa Claus is coming to town with Nat King Cole, the themes of your Christmas. Well if you keep Santa and not Jesus on your lawns, windows, cards and gift-wrap, don’t be surprised, the Bethlehem story will vanish, just like the Christian people in Bethlehem itself, where the annihilation of Palestinian Christians is on the agenda of some powerful people.

In all this Santa Claus still smiles.  He is omnipresent urging us on to delight in him, not leading us to Bethlehem, but hoping we get the message that Christmas is simply not religious, is it? Or is it?

We only have ourselves, the in-crowd to blame.  We are often very vitriolic about the purging of Santa from our Christmas thinking.  I am here to tell you it doesn’t work.  And it is not good. So what do we do?  Maybe we need a wonder-worker to step in, someone with a pedigree beyond repute. Well, who could it be?  The answer lies in the perceived problem itself.  St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, Saint in Bari, lover of children, protector of sailors and saint of those on the margins (and who isn’t on the margins).
Santa Claus is simply translated Santa means saint and Claus is a shortened Nicholas.

A real person, a priest and bishop, a devout Christian imprisoned for his faith (look at the current persecutions of Christians in Congo, India, Pakistan, Sudan and Palestine just to name a few).  A man filled with the essence and being of Christ, just like us, may it be so.

The work of the St Nicholas Society that has the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mrs Jane Williams as the patron.  In Beit Jala Palestine we helped some 1000 children have at least one Christmas present and the gifts were received with great delight. St Nicholas is the patron saint of Beit Jala and one can see the Israeli bullets holes in the doors and windows of the church where legend says St Nicholas lived for a time. It should be a great site of pilgrimage and tourism, instead it is locked tight and looks like an air-raid shelter. How tragic!

So rejoice in God’s saints. Let Nicholas guide us to Bethlehem where he joins us in worship, awe and wonder, as we look in patient hope for greatest gift ever given to humanity – the gift of the God-made-man, Jesus cradled in the arms of the Mother of God, and offering to us the chance to rid ourselves of stress, and strife, anxiety and fear, even if just for a short time.

The Lord is glorious in his saints, come let us adore him and for Nicholas we give a special thank you and receives the gifts he too offers

SO when you see Santa next, say, you better watch out, you better not cry…cause good St Nick is coming to town and we are happy to greet him.  I always say there is a little bit of St Nicholas in all of us. Let it shine forth now!

AMEN.

The Revd Canon Dr James Rosenthal is founder of the SNS UK/USA.  www.stnicholascenter.org and www.stnicholassociety.com