Thought for the Day, December 6th 2021

 I recently overheard the following conversation between my children. My eight year old declared that he doesn’t believe in God, to which my daughter replied, “But you believe in Santa!” “That’s different,” he said. “I have proof that Santa exists, because he leaves me presents every year.” To which my other son replied, “God is like Santa; a fat guy with a beard who you never see. You ask him for stuff and sometimes he delivers.” 

This observation taught me two things; one, belief and faith are quite different, and two, I really do need to have another chat with my sons about God. 

Now might be a good time to do that because today the Church observes the feast day of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra and elusive source of the tale of Santa Claus. The stories about him have become laced with legend but one strand of folklore seems to be key; this legendary figure, rooted in history, gives generously and he does it in secret, when no one can see, and he asks for nothing in return. Leaving good and naughty lists aside, this is a deeply Christian idea of giving.

I grew up in an atheist home where Santa Claus was everything to the Christmas season. I can still vividly recall the hushed excitement of my brother and I leaving our beds in the dark and creeping downstairs behind our parents to see if Santa had visited. The mince pie we’d left would have one neat, politely bitten bite, and the drink we’d left - our Santa drank whiskey - would be all but gone. Christmas was an outpouring of wonder and magic, and it was fantastic. 

When I became a Christian in adulthood I experienced anew the wonder and magic of the Christmas season, the focal point now being Jesus, who said that unless we change and become like little children, we will never enter the kingdom of heaven. My coming to faith has been a gradual unknowing; a letting go of ego and a realisation that I don’t need to have all the answers. It has been a reclaiming of the forgotten wonder of childhood, where imagination makes anything possible. Saint Augustine wrote that faith is to believe what you do not see and that the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. For me, Jesus Christ - the ultimate present from God – is the proof that God does indeed deliver.