BibleDriven

Back on Christmas Eve, I stopped at one of the local coffee shops (imagine that) for a good cup o’ joe and to read a while. When I went in I was greeted by a young man I had met there before … and he looked serious, intent, concerned. He leaned over and said, “We still need to believe.” And I said, “Yes we do!” He then told me that he’d been thinking that morning about the state of things—the world, our nation, the economy, people’s lives—and he was burdened about it all and about the fact that so much skepticism and pessimism and fear of the future and all that kind of stuff was what occupied people’s minds every day. So, he said, he wanted to make a difference, to change the way people think about life, to help them through trouble and trial and sorrow. And to that end, he’d sat down that very morning and written a reflection, an exhortation, on “Why We Should Still Believe.”

He gave me a copy. Then he gave me a lot of copies and asked me to give them to folks at church if we had a Christmas Eve service. I took them and told him I’d give it a look. He went on about his “work” and I grabbed my coffee and sat down in the corner at a table, and started to read:

“The world today has become complicated and full of negativity,” he wrote. “You look at the headlines on the newspapers and the front page is consumed with financial scandal and war.” I couldn’t argue there. Then he wrote, “Realizing this I start to think about what is missing, what is strong enough for us to go back to a time of simple innocence.” I was hopeful. He went on, “As my mind races looking for an answer, one name comes to mind, Santa Claus.” I nearly fell out of my chair. His conclusion? “The world today needs Santa Claus more than ever … On this Christmas I have one wish, that we all start to believe in Santa Claus again.”

And in that instant, my heart was broken, not just for him but for a whole culture and a world so desperately empty, rudderless and adrift that people look for hope and help in a fable they know to be false, grabbing for anything they think will help keep their heads above water, longing for some lost innocence, some moment of inspiration, some little anticipation for a better world. I looked around for him, but he was gone. I wanted to say, “Yes, we do still need to believe, and there is a Name that comes to mind, but it’s not Santa Claus. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God the Son born under the Law to redeem us from the Law, Redeemer, Mediator, the One that Christmas celebration is all about, the only One who has done something about all that’s wrong in our world, who is taking all who believe in him not back to innocence but on to holiness and glory, who has promised not just a better world, but a new heaven and earth! In him we have life, in him we have hope, in him we find joy, in him we’re given peace that passes understanding and hope here and hereafter.

And that’s no fable!