Isn’t God just Santa for grown ups?
An unseen figure, with a big beard and supernatural powers. He lives a long way away, but is conducting around-the-clock surveillance
on our lives, to judge if we’ve been naughty or nice. If we work hard, so that our ‘nice’ outweighs our ‘naughty’, we can present him with our list of desires and he will deliver.
We all grow up knowing that picture of Santa Claus. But for some people, it is also their picture of God. Somehow they’ve missed the Bible’s fantastic news that, in sending Jesus, God has sent us the ultimate gift – the gift that we really need; the gift that changes everything, forever. And he offers the gift to everyone, even the people self-aware enough to know that their ‘nice’ will never outweigh their ‘naughty’.
That’s why, at St Mark’s, we love to celebrate Jesus’ birth each
year. That’s why our Christmas carols are not ‘you better watch out, you better not cry’ or ‘He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake’ but rather ‘joy to the world’ and ‘God and sinners, reconciled’.
Christmas is a time of great joy, because Jesus is a great saviour. If you’re not quite sure what that really means but would like to find out, we invite you to join us at St Mark’s this Christmas. It doesn’t matter if you’re a church regular or haven’t been in the last 2000 years; you’ll be welcome.
