“Santa’s coming this weekend! Have you been good?”

The question has been posed to my children time and time again over the past days and weeks. Last night as I rolled out pie crust and listened to the Christmas music filling up my playlist, I wondered… how often do we try to make Jesus into Santa Claus?

We want Jesus to fill our outstretched hands with fabulous things. We will gladly supply Him with a wishlist – and often do, sometimes in the form of long and drawn out prayers attempting to convince God to give us what we want need.

To add another complex layer to our confusion, many of us have convinced ourselves that getting on his ‘good side’ depends on our good behavior. Works for Santa, right? Just stay off of the naughty list, that’s all he asks of you!

But the amazing, stunning, scandalous truth of Christmas is this: Jesus is nothing like Santa Claus.

He does see you when you’re sleeping, and He does know when you’re awake – but He knows the truth: none of us are good. We are inherently tainted with sin from birth, and then have chosen to rebel against Him time and time and time again. It is impossible for us to “be good for goodness sake.”

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8

While we were yet sinners. While we were utterly incapable of reaching out to Him, even with our feeble attempts at goodness, He loved us enough to humble Himself, wrap Himself in flesh, and present Himself as the ultimate gift on a cross-shaped tree.

The scandalous truth of the Gospel is this: Jesus is nothing like Santa Claus. He’s not looking to reward good behavior. He’s not interested in you trying harder. He’s watching you – but it’s with an eye of tender mercy and compassion. He sees us in our sin and desperation and failure – He sees what we really are, deep inside, the shameful secrets we try to hide.

Instead of waiting for you to get your act together, He came. He came offering the most priceless gift we can imagine, the one we could never, ever earn – He offers the gift of Himself.

While we were yet sinners.

Yes, Jesus is nothing like Santa. The Gospel is gloriously scandalous – you are more deeply broken and sinful than you could ever dare to admit, and you are more lavishly loved than you will ever comprehend. Stop trying to be good, friends, and come to Him in your brokenness. What He offers you in exchange will take your breath away.

When Adam and Eve made that universe-altering choice to rebel against God, they were consumed with shame (Gen. 3:7-8), they spiritually died and were separated from God (3:8-10), and their relationship with one another was broken by sin and blame (3:11-13).

From yesterday’s post:

“But Eden has broken us. Our own sin has splintered us. And we are utterly dependent on His grace to provide the antidote to the poison coursing through our souls.

And so we wait, hiding in the bushes, trembling beneath our pitiful leaves… we wait for how our God will respond.”

So, how WILL God respond?

God pronounces a curse on the enemy and the physical world. The effects of the physical curse mirror the spiritual rebellion and death that have already occurred at the moment of their disobedience. They rebelled against God, now their domains will rebel against them.

Adam, made from the dust, placed in the garden, given dominion to rule, would now find that his God-given domain would no longer submit to his care.

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food”

Genesis 3:17-19

He would plant vegetables, he would reap thorns and thistles. His work, intended to be rewarding and fulfilling, would be difficult and laborious.

As Adam was made from and for the earth, Eve was made from and for her husband. She, too, would face specific consequences for her sin:

“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

Genesis 3:16

Eve was intended to live under Adam’s loving care and leadership, but she would chafe against him. Her capacity to give life to the next generation would still be intact, but damaged. Bringing forth and raising children would be difficult, painful, fraught with sorrow. She was made for relationship, but these relationships closest to her heart would be a source of pain.

And just as they had died spiritually at the moment of their disobedience, now they would face physical death, as well.

“…for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

Genesis 3:19

The curse is like a mirror reflecting the spiritual reality that we cannot see. While Adam and Eve chose spiritual death by disobeying the clear word of God, God Himself brought the pain and sadness of the curse into our world.

Why?

I cannot comprehend the fullness of the mind of God. Not even close. His plans and purposes are more than I can fathom.

But from my human mind, I have begun to see the curse as hidden grace. First of all, while I love this beautiful life God has given me full of creation’s beauty and time with those I love… it is a deeply broken world. The weight of sin and sadness weighs on me. The evil humanity is capable of is impossible for me to live at ease with. The more I know my God, the more I long to be with Him – physically with Him. Death, while our enemy, is a hidden gift.

Secondly, and directly related to the first, without this physical pain mirroring the spiritual, I don’t know if we would even begin to comprehend the consequences of our sin. When my garden is overrun with weeds and pests, it is a physical picture of my own deep-rooted sinfulness that must be constantly subdued or it will take a choke-hold in my heart. When my children rebel and back-talk, they act out for me my own rebellion against God. When my body gets sick, when I am surrounded by struggles with death and decay, I am faced with the harsh reality that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. The physical brokenness all around me is a constant reminder that the spiritual brokenness in the world, while invisible to the eye, is much, much more serious.

But my friend, this is not the end of the story. If God had left us here – spiritually dead, physically dying, limping through life in a world that fights against us at every turn – if this was the end we would truly have no hope.

But it’s not. Monday, we’ll discover the Gospel, the good news, in Genesis chapter 3.

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Join me at Scripture Dig today as we ponder grace in the past-tense… it is a rich hope, indeed.

The Child's Caress - from http://www.marycassatt.org

Yesterday was epic – our first trip to the zoo, just me and the three kids. Between stopping to admire lions and jellyfish and red pandas, I found myself constantly observing other mothers around me.

The boy, about 6 years old, runs down the rope bridge, pushing little ones out of his way. He loses his shoe in the middle of the bridge and begins to scold my 3 year old LB, accusing him of causing his shoe to fall off. I retrieve the shoe and remind him to watch out for the little ones playing around him. He looks up to me and says he needs help getting his shoe on. I tell him to find his mom. He wanders to various mother standing in the area, asking for someone to help him with his shoe. Where is his mother?

Meanwhile, another mother has her cross-hairs fixed firmly on the boy. Her voice is shrill. “Would you PLEASE get away from my TWO YEAR OLD child and stop PUSHING her? Come on, girls, we’re leaving. We’ll have to come back when THEY aren’t here. If his PARENTS were WATCHING him maybe he would stop PUSHING and you could play.” I understand her feelings – seeing my children get pushed around riles me up like few things do. But I wonder, does she have no compassion?

We kept walking, I kept watching, thinking. Our issues seem to be in full and radiant color when we become mothers. Selfishness evidences itself in being absent, uncaring, unaware of the way we wound our children or leave them vulnerable to danger. Pride rears its ugly head as parents valiantly try to show their children as smarter, more talented, more valuable than those around them. Second generation vanity demands the most expensive stroller, most stylish diaper bag, expensive boutique clothing on a child stomping through a muddy zoo. Laziness makes a subtle appearance, showing as lack of discipline, unwillingness to deal with behavior and intentionally teach our children.

Motherhood is hard. Sinful, imperfect women make sinful, imperfect mothers.

I am one of them.

I wonder how many times others have watched me in the store, in the park, in the zoo – how often have they seen me snap too quickly, scold too harshly, respond to the grueling days of motherhood with selfishness, laziness, pride, vanity? My heart aches at the thought.

God has given us an incredibly difficult job, ladies. We cannot do it on our own. I cannot imagine attempting to parent without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

We need to ask Him to cause us to mother selflessly, to enable us to say “follow me as I follow Christ.” And in the meantime, when we watch the broken, sinful, imperfect parents around us… may God give us hearts full of compassion and grace. May we be quicker to pray for them than to sit in judgment, may we remember where we would be but for the grace of God.