“he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake! Oh you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why. . . santa claus is coming to town!”
“What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!”
Wow. . . which God would you rather serve? One that makes you scared that one wrong move will cause you to miss out, or the One who offers to take your punishment for you and offer you heavenly riches earth could never hold? I just saw these two lyric sets this morning just mere posts apart on my FB wall. The contrast was striking!
Then if that wasn’t enough, there’s the song Silver Bells, where the second verse talks about the hustle and bustle of shopping as, guess who? santa’s “big scene”! Contrast that to another set of lyrics, Silent Night or Away in a Manger where we see the very opposite of consumerism in an animal shelter, with a baby laying in a cow’s hay trough.
In one song we have mankind joyfully buying all they can as a form of celebration while in the other song we have a couple barely scraping by, welcoming the God of heaven’s wonders in the form of an equally poor newborn child. Again, which God would you rather serve?
I personally know Christians who tell their children that santa as we know him today, is real and they get after me for destroying the Christmas spirit when I insist they tell their children the truth! The modern-day concept that is sung about, stories told about, blown up on business rooftops and shown in movies, is not the legend of the three men in history, one of which bears a very similar name. Those three men would roll over in their graves if they saw the coke-a-Cola sensation that has become the god of the winter festival.
We have two gods vying for people’s attention every Christmas. The god of consumerism, me-me-me, wish lists and materialism, and we have the God of heaven, Emmanuel, becoming God with us and seeking to teach an earthly life of selflessness, humility, and generosity. The comparisons are stark and shocking!
As a worshipper, I simply CAN NOT sing about the god of the winter festival. I’ll sing to the rooftops about the God of Christmas, but I cannot sing about the god of consumerism.