Advent’s first message is to repent, to literally, re-lean, to “Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways.” So as Kathy and I watched Miracle on 34th Street, I realized that Karen Armstrong is right. She says in The Case for God that we as adults hold on to a juvenile concept of God, a god who is like Santa Claus. Whaddyawant for Christmas? Have you been good or bad? And my, how can you consider looking into the eyes of the sweet little nine year old Natalie Wood and telling her that sometimes believing in Santa Claus doesn’t mean you’ll get that house for you and your mommy to live in, with a smiling “daddy” to boot!
We have it exactly, except we need to step inside ourselves and look at it from the inside. Christmas is more than HO, HO, HO! God is more than Santa Claus, and we are more than starry-eyed nine-year olds. God is beyond imagining, beyond formulating, beyond, as Armstrong writes, “ourselves, writ large”.
Repent. Turn around. What we mistake for Santa Claus coming and HO, HO, HO is even better. Christmas is about God coming to join us in our not so naively miraculous world. God with us! OH, OH, OH!
Have an awe-ful Advent.
Have an awe-ful Advent.
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