My Fourth
symbol of Christmas is Santa Clause:
From the online Wikipedia we learn that “Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle and simply "Santa", is a figure
with legendary, historical and folkloric origins… The modern
figure of Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas,
whose name is a dialectal pronunciation of Saint Nicholas, the historical
Greek bishop and gift-giver of Myra. Other names for the
figure include De Sint ("The Saint"), De
Goedheiligman ("The Good Holy Man"), and De Goede
Sint ("The Good Saint") in Dutch…”
If I were
to describe to a group of children at Christmas time a man dressed in red, with
a beard, that knows if you’ve been good or bad, is kind, and loves children –
most of them as well as their parents would picture in their minds a
traditional image of Santa. But these
characteristics also describe the Savior Jesus Christ. I love this picture of Christ:
To me
Santa Clause is a symbol for Jesus Christ; in fact the German root of the name
Kris Kringle means Christ Child. Santa
should remind us the real reason for the season! Go to this link and view a wonderful painting by Greg Olsen. The way I view Santa is that he is a symbol of Christ.
Just as
children hope that Santa will bring them something wonderful for Christmas we
can have hope in Christ that He will bring to us peace, joy, happiness and show
us the way forward.
I hope
that during the remainder of this Christmas season that as each of you see these symbols of Christmas around you
that you will be quick to remember the true meaning of Christmas and that doing
so will fill your hearts and homes with Hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment