We recently watched The Polar Express as a family. I remember loving the slideshow of it as a kid--the elementary school librarian would show it each year before Christmas. Our oldest daughter is four and we've had many conversations this year about Santa. As over-analyzers, Matt and I can't just go with the flow and try to convince her that Santa is real. Many talk about the "magic" of Santa, and how they don't want to ruin that for their kids. I'm not here to argue about what you should tell your kids about Santa, but I do want to share my thoughts on this "magic" business.
Our daughter, like most four-year-olds, is really into pretending. She also loves watching shows and reading books. Often, she gets that hopeful sparkle in her wide eyes and asks things like, "Are superheroes real?!" or "Are unicorns real?" On a basic developmental level, she's forming an important life skill of being able to differentiate between what's real and what's not. We have great conversations about it. After watching The Polar Express, she asked with disappointment, "Are you sure Santa isn't real?"
Do you know why she wants superheroes, unicorns, and Santa to be real? Because there is something magical about them. Somehow, she knows they are extraordinary, and maybe even too amazing to actually exist. But she wants so badly for them to be real! She loves how superheroes can do incredible things that defy normal human limitations. She loves how colorful and... popular?... unicorns are. And now, she loves how Santa too can do things that nobody else can. He knows if kids are naughty or nice, he lives on the North Pole, he has flying reindeer, and he somehow delivers presents to the whole world in one night.
We love the wonders of the world which are so extraordinary that it is hard to believe they're real until we see them--glaciers, geysers, massive caves, towering mountains, roaring waterfalls, incomprehensibly large trees, oceans of unsearchable depths, animals of astounding size, microscopic complexities that we are usually oblivious of, galaxies with all kinds of stats we can't begin to fathom. We long for the legendary, unexplainable, extraordinary things of life. People are finding ways to climb the tallest mountains and explore oceans, rain forests, and outer space. We love being in awe. But what if these marvels aren't just sources for natural highs, but the expression of the One who designed it all? If you remember that all of these natural wonders are the work of an artist, are you impressed?
Couldn't it be that our desire for the "magical" is actually a desire for the supernatural? What about the one who parted the Red Sea, caused a city's wall to fall merely by His people marching around it, caused wine and fish and bread to multiply, healed the sick and raised the dead? We long for the One who not only designed the world, but is also not limited by the laws of nature that He put into place.
So what if you started seeing the supernatural a little differently? There are those who really see the Bible as a collection of mythology like any other. That's not what I'm proposing. Rather, what if we let ourselves marvel at the incarnation like the world marveled at the pretend story of Clark Kent (who looked human but had hidden superpowers and was from another world) being sent to earth? What if we were amazed at the miracles of Jesus which didn't have the cunning manipulation or selfishness of the magic of Disney's Ursula or Elsa? What if we zoomed out and saw God's overarching design for the world and saw how superior it is to the worlds of Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings... and let ourselves marvel at the heavenly realms which biblical prophets could hardly describe? What if we compared the truth of Scripture to the best stories of our time and noticed how much greater the Almighty is?
And what if we used these realizations and comparisons to help others see Him too?
What if we stopped demanding people "keep Christ in Christmas" and helped them see that God is much more amazing and good than Santa, and that He is far more satisfying than any Christmas traditions; that when we long for faithfulness and truthworthiness and justice and a Provider and Comforter and stability and peace, it is actually Him who we are longing for; and that when we really stop and see Him for who He is, He is better than any Hero or cause, and worth obsessing over, surrendering to, singing about, and living for. The true wonder of Christmas is even more marvelous than the "magic" of Santa.
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