On Santa Claus

A personal note, rare for this blog -- I thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas season, with all its busyness, especially a sermon I heard at Central Christian Church with all 16 members of my wife's side of the family on the Sunday after Christmas. It started out with a cute story about the pastor's three year old freaking out on his way to sit on Santa's lap, which tied into a blistering analogy -- we Christians tend to treat God like Santa Claus. He also expounded on St. Nicholas in a way I had never heard before and challenged us all to "be the church," not just go to church. St. Nicholas apparently was a hero of the faith long before he transmogrified into Santa Claus. So maybe there is something to celebrating gifts from St. Nicholas and Jesus' birthday instead of the commercial entity known as Santa Claus, like my sister-in-law does. There's also a challenge in that sermon to pray like Jesus taught us and a picture of heaven that's different from anything I've heard. If Central puts up the video, I'll link to it here.