(seriously…listen to this one)
You better watch out, you better not cry
You better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He’s making a list, checking it twice
He’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
That might be a great song for teaching our kids that there are consequences to our actions. And I’m sure it’s been used to put the fear of God into a few (so to speak).
But as we have been journeying through advent – a season of anticipating “arrival” – we come to the eve of Christmas eve. Let’s zoom out on the whole Bible. Let’s look at a couple verses that complete the Christmas story. To do that we’ve got to zoom out and look at the whole thing. Or at least the beginning and the end of the story.
Where it all starts for God is different than us. He’s perfect. He doesn’t need a cosmos or a bunch of goons like me. But He wants us…to be with Him, to enjoy Him, to be His viceroys of the created order.
And if you look over there you see a couple trees. One has some tasty fruit. But the other, oh my, tinsel and lights and shining wrapped things…and a guy in a serpent suit. Now the serpent’s probably not ugly the way we think of snakes, and we don’t have time to go into why God might have called the Satan, the deceiver, the accuser, a snake. Ezekiel 28 calls him the “anointed cherub,” so he was probably beautiful in some way we can’t imagine. And he’s a smooth talker.
Lights? Presents? Oh, that’s not the half of it. God’s been holding out on you. Imagine…just imagine…be able to be your own God and decide for yourself what good and evil are.
Well, you know how that turned out. Free will was abused, and people creation got all screwed up. And that brings us to the first appearance of the Christmas story. Genesis 3:15 records God cursing the serpent, and He says:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
What? What’s that got to do with Christmas? It’s the first appearance of, by implication, Jesus the conqueror of sin and death via a virgin birth.
Remember that in a patriarchy, kingship was passed down through men. But in this (and really the verses that surround it), it talks about the seed, the progeny, of the woman. What? The serpent butt kicker was going to come from the woman?
You know how that early in both Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels there are genealogies? What do those tell us? Where the baby came from! And we’re going to use a couple sentences to describe what books have been written about: One is Jesus’ lineage through papa Joseph, the other through mama Mary. One establishes His Kingship, the other His priesthood. And if we remember that Jesus is Joseph’s adopted son, the sin of the father is not, so to speak, passed through to the son.
So what do we get? A sinless Son is born on Christmas day to live a sinless life, die an atoning death for all humans, taking on the punishment that we deserve for whoever’s been naught (and that’s all of us), and be raised again to conquer sin, death, and sneaky snakes once and for all.
How’s that for a Merry Christmas?
God already knew who was going to be naughty or nice. Turns out, despite what Instagram tells you, we’re all naughty. Doesn’t mean we don’t do some nice things, but we’re imperfect relative to a perfect, holy, just, and loving God who still wants you. YOU!
So those two trees? I’m not really saying that the Christmas tree is the path to death. But it might just be a reminder that Jesus didn’t come on Christmas day to put some shiny wrapping and a bow on your outside. He didn’t come to make bad people good. He came so that when you trust Him and the real Christmas story, dead people live.
But that’s only the middle of the book. To finish the Christmas story we need to read to the end. Here’s how God, in the book of Revelation (22:1-2), describes the new heavens and the new earth:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Did you catch that tree thing? The new heavens and the new earth will be where Christmas is every day for the new you. No more naughty. No more tears. No more bullies at school or coworkers making hurtful Jesus jokes.
Santa Claus is coming to town. In fact, he’s already been here. To bring peace to the hearts of those who read the whole Christmas story and keep our eyes fixed on the real gift.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in communications, an award-winning author and speaker, and a passionately bad guitarist. ForTheHope equips on-the-go professionals with biblical principles to engage marketplace relationships with competent humility. On Twitter can follow him @RogerCourville and/or his podcast @JoinForTheHope, or get all updates by email subscription at www.forthehope.org.