A letter from Anthony...
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:23
Have you
been naughty or nice this year?
It’s that
time of year again when we start to see homes and shop windows decorated with
Christmas decorations; and many of those displays featuring Santa Claus. And if you’re out Christmas shopping you’ll
probably hear the song “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” played in at least one
of the shops at some point.
“You
better watch out, You better not cry, Better not pout, I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town. He's
making a list, And checking it twice; Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice,
Santa Claus is coming to town, 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! O! You better watch out! You better not cry, Better not pout, I'm telling
you why, Santa Claus is coming to town.”
The modern
story of Santa Claus is one that is designed to motivate children to be good
for their parents. However, we all know that as much as a child might be
motivated to behave for a short amount of time by the idea of getting a good present,
it’s usually not too long before something else distracts them and their
motivation is gone. And sadly, as
followers of Jesus we often act the same as children. We promise to be good, we get motivated by
such a great reward, but then before we know it, something else catches our eye
and our motivation is gone.
Christmas is
good news of great joy because Jesus is not like Santa.
Despite the
fact that we are so easily distracted from the prize of life forever in Jesus,
and freedom from our sin – Jesus isn’t like Santa. Our reward is not directly related to our
obedience. In fact, the gift we receive
from Jesus is free, it’s not something that we can earn, it’s not something we
have any right to boast about, and it was not given to us on the basis of past,
present or future performance.
If freedom from sin and life with Christ required us to be ‘nice’, as ‘Santa Claus’ expects of us, then we would all fail to receive the reward we wanted. Rather, we would all inevitably earn for ourselves the wages of our sins, which is death and separation from God.
But,
Christmas is good news of great joy, because at Christmas we celebrate that God
the Father sent His One and Only Son into the world to free us from our need to
try and measure up. And through the
grace of the Cross we receive forgiveness for our sin and eternal life with
Him.
If the gift depended on us, then we would simply never receive it. Therefore, the good news of great joy at Christmas, and throughout the year, is that God has given us the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord, and it does not depend on us – but on His gracious love for us.
In Christ, Anthony
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