(upbeat music) ♪ Better watch out ♪ ♪ Better not cry ♪ ♪ Better not pout ♪ ♪ I'm telling you why ♪ - Santa Claus is coming to town, likely to a shopping mall near you. And Santa appears a lot this time of year and in a lot of our listener emails too.

In fact, 200 mentions of Santa are in the inbox to date. But it's been a few years since we've last addressed him here on the Ask Pastor John podcast. And to do so today, Pastor John joins me over the phone. Pastor John, of course, there's a fourth century Greek historical figure named Saint Nicholas.

That's not who we're talking about. All of those 200 references to Santa are speaking about the mythical, white bearded, red suited, reindeer flying Santa, that one. And most recently from a podcast listener named Jill. Dear Pastor John, I'm a stay at home mother of three small children, five, four, and two.

My husband and I grew up as children believing Santa Claus to be real. And while it was truly magical for those nine years when I found out that it wasn't true, I remember burying my head and sobbing. I was not angry at my parents. I knew they wanted to surprise me and make Christmas special.

However, I was truly disappointed. Now, as a mother, I feel torn between scriptures like do not lie to one another, Colossians 3, 9, and yet still desiring to create something mythical and special and magical for my children around Christmas. But I fear more emphasis is placed on the bearded man in a suit than Jesus, our savior.

My question is, what if my husband feels differently and actually wants to keep the Santa myth alive for our children? What, Pastor John, should I do? - Well, I see three different issues in what Jill is asking, at least if I hear her correctly. And so let me say a word about each one of these.

And I'm gonna end on the very question about dealing with her husband. But I think there are two other issues besides that one that probably need to be addressed. Number one is that the primary crisis in her own mind seems to be, can you preserve the myth and magic of Santa Claus without disobeying the biblical command in Colossians 3, 9 not to lie to one another?

And I think the answer to that is really quite simple and straightforward, no, you can't. That is, you can't teach your children that Santa Claus is real if your intention is to teach them the truth. And by real, I mean real the way children think of real, not the way sophisticated intellectuals would call a myth real or that imagination is real.

I get that. It's just not the point. The point is, are we misleading the children in saying to them, is a simple statement of fact, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole a fact? Santa Claus flies with reindeer, leaves gifts under the tree, is served by elves. To present this myth as fact is not truthful to our children.

Now, I'm trying to get inside other people's heads when they listen to this and ask questions. And so I'm responding here to imaginary questions that I would ask myself. This is different, for example, from reading fiction to your children. Somebody might say, well, it's not wrong to have fiction in your kids' lives, like "Chronicles of Narnia" or "Grimm's Fairy Tales." Those are presented not as real the way breakfast is real and backyards are real.

They're made up, just like Jesus made up parables. And the children should know that they're made up and they should know, why do parents tell children made up stories? 'Cause it's a good thing, I think, to tell children made up stories. There's a reason why Jesus told parables and that you have these kinds of things in the Bible.

Here's another response to a possible objection. Not being truthful about Santa Claus or untruthful about Santa Claus is different from keeping from small children many difficult issues in married life. I can imagine somebody saying, well, we don't tell our children all the truth about what's going on. It's not lying when we don't burden our younger children with financial hardships or marital squabbles or difficulties with the in-laws.

The older they get, the more they should know. But when they're very young, not capable of dealing with any of those things, we just withhold them. But foisting on our children an entire fabricated framework for understanding Christmas that is not true and which they take to be true is totally different from helping our children handle as much truth as they can in an age-appropriate way.

Santa Claus is not a withholding of painful truth until the children are old enough to handle it. Santa Claus is the obscuring of thrilling truth because we think the real truth can't compete with Santa Claus in the hearts of our children, which leads now to the second issue, namely that the first issue is not the real issue.

Can you say this without lying? The first issue was, can Santa Claus myth and magic be presented and preserved for our children as something real without lying? That's not the issue. That's just not the issue. The main issue is, why would a Christian who has found in Jesus Christ the greatest treasure in the world and who sees in the incarnation and life and death and resurrection and reign of Jesus the most amazing story in the world and who knows that in this real historical event, all the truth of myth and magic became reality, why would such a Christian ever dream of replacing or obscuring or supplementing this coming true of every story worth telling with such a non-gospel, pathetic myth like Santa Claus whose message is, you better be good.

You better not cry. I just can't imagine it. But I regard the effort of Christian parents to lay the Santa Claus story over the Jesus story as a failure to be thrilled with the greatest story in the world and a failure of imagination for how to speak about the real story and show the real story in a way that helps children share our amazement.

It's a failure. It's a syncretistic compromise with culture. Poor Jesus, poor Jesus. He's invisible. Santa Claus is not. You can see him at the mall. Poor Jesus doesn't make any rounds on a sled in the sky leaving toys under the tree. So instead of searching the scriptures for, why is it a great thing for Jesus to be invisible and not to be here as it says in John 16, 7, that it is a great thing that he's not here.

Why is it a great thing that he left the earth and sent his spirit instead of staying here or riding on a sled? Why is his slowness to come back again at the end of the age in the great second coming a huge mercy that the children ought to understand?

Second Peter 3, 9. In other words, I'm dealing with the invisibility of Jesus here. And why is it not amazing to parents that we are representatives on earth? That's a glorious view of human life. Second Corinthians 5, 20. Instead of finding these stupendous answers to these questions that children may have, finding answers in the Bible, we replace the most important questions in the world with an easy distraction.

That's the real issue. Why would we do that? Why would we do that? Now, the last issue. Jill wants to know what if she does want to focus on the glories of the truth of Christ, but her husband is still stuck in the superiority of the Santa substitute. Here's my three suggestions to her.

Number one, talk this through with him in August, not December. Now I say that, I know it's too late. This is a principle of conflict that Noel and I have found very helpful over the years. Separate principled issue discussions from pressured emotional crises in the moment of application. That's number one.

Number two, spell out the gains, not the losses. Dropping Santa is gain, or Christianity is a lie. If Christ cannot compete with Santa in the hearts of our kids, we don't know the real Christ, or there is no real Christ. Number three, give your husband concrete ideas for ways of celebrating Christ's coming that are just as exciting as the charade of Santa Claus.

And if you need help, my wife wrote a book called "Treasuring God in Our Traditions" that describes some of the things we did over the years for our little kids when we didn't have Santa Claus, we didn't have stockings, we didn't even have a tree. (both laughing) But you say, "How can you not have a tree?" Well, there are alternative exciting things to do.

Bottom line, truth is stranger than fiction. Stranger, more amazing, more thrilling, more durable, more heart transforming, more Christ honoring, more soul satisfying. And your children, get this now, your children have Christ-shaped empty spaces in their hearts. They don't know this. You must show them. But it can't be done.

That can't be done with Santa Claus, only Christ. - Amen. In fact, all of us have this Christ-shaped empty space in our hearts, and the promises of Santa will never fill that space ever. Thank you, Pastor John. And Jill, thanks for sending in the question. You represent many, many listeners out there who are asking similar questions, so thanks for sending it in and being the representative to ask it.

And speaking of Christmas, next time on the podcast, we're gonna address how to find purpose and meaning in our Christmas gift giving to others. Now, of course, all this talk about Christmas means another year is about to end. 2019 will soon be here. It's incredible how fast these years go by.

And as 2018 draws to a close, we enter a really critical season in our budget cycle here at Desiring God. Get this, nearly 40% of our annual budget comes to us from donors in the month of December alone. 40%. So this last month of the year is really huge for our year-round labors here at DG.

And if you are a regular listener to the podcast, and if you benefit from the resources at Desiring God, would you consider making a donation before December 31st? In fact, you can do so right now online. Go to desiringgod.org/give. That's desiringgod.org/give. Thank you for considering it during this really critical last month of the year for us.

I am a very grateful Tony Reinke, and we will see you back here on Friday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)