There is a famous song entitled "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas."  It plays on the radio and mall loudspeakers this time of year.  However, some people actually made an attempt to make Christmas white....not by the snow on the ground but by claiming that Jesus was white and Santa is white.  I don't really have an issue with claiming Jesus' or St. Nickolas' in the ethnicity or culture in which one resides.  As Christians we know this is part of our heritage and tradition in each place the Gospel has been planted.  The real problem with claiming Jesus and Santa as historically white is that it misrepresents the Jesus and St. Nickolas that are actually from history, a place and time embedded in time frame of our past.  To claim that Jesus, a Jewish male in the middle east, as a pale straight blond haired and blue eyed savior is inaccurate.  It does not help to make our Christmas white, in a way that we can shape and make Jesus into whatever we want him to be....including often mistaking him for Santa, the bringer of gifts to people who are good and giving lumps of coal to bad boys and girls.

Is this the picture we want of Jesus?  The power of the Christmas message is not that we get to make Jesus like we want him but that God brought Christ into the world to redeem all the world.  This message isn't as clean as we like it either.  For Jesus is born in a shanty to unwed parents while poor farmers come to witness and kings come to worship.  It is a scandalous message for sure.  but let's stop trying to make a white Christmas, it distracts us from the message the God is with us....all of us!  Merry Christmas in all colors!  Praying attention - Pastor Andy

The thing about some aspects of Christian history is we miss the fun stuff when we provide a glossy revision of that history.  The thing about Santa is that we have an image provided for us by the the writings of Washington Irving in the early 1800's in NY or the poem entitled "A visit of St. Nickolas" by Clement Clark Moore (later told as 'Twas the Night Before Christmas).  Coca Cola has inspired the new look fat jolly man who rides a sleigh pulled by reindeer.  All of this is to say that what we know about St. Nickolas is through cultural expressions not history.

Different cultural expressions of St. Nick derive from their places of origin.  In the Netherlands, children place their wooden shoes outside on Dec 5th (the night before the feast of Saint Nickolas) and food was placed in those shoes for the children to receive early Dec 6th.  The hanging of stocking to receive presents comes from a gold finding its way into a wet sock hanging to dry by the fire for a poor man's daughter as a dowry so she could be wed.  All of these stories relate to Saint Nickolas, who used his inheritance of his rich parents to provide for those in need, especially the poor.  The cultural traditions surrounding St. Nickolas derive from his generosity.

The thing that is left out of many of the stories of St. Nickolas is his faithfulness.  The reason he used his inheritance from his parents and distributed it to the poor is based upon the teachings of Scripture from those very pious parents.  After their death, his uncle, Bishop Nicholas of Patara, ordained him as his assistant.  After his ordination Nickolas became a teacher of the faith, a catechist.

St. Nick took his faith so seriously he became Archbishop of Myra (in Asia Minor).  He was at the first council of churches in Nicea, a gathering of church leaders to establish what it is all Christians believe. The main issue that the council wrestled with was the relationship between Jesus as Son of Man to God the Father. At the council was a man named Arius who rejected the idea of Jesus divinity (that he was the son of God).  At one point in the council, Arius stood on his chair to speak more loudly, probably because his idea is against church teaching or Heresy.  As he stood on his chair, it is believed that St. Nickolas walked over to Arius and grabed him by the beard and punched him in the face.  Because of this his bishop's robe was stripped of him and he was locked in prison.  But it is said that he was visited in prison by the Holy Family and restored of his robe.  Because of this he was restored his seat at the council where he slept through many of the remaining procedings.

SO...If you are celebrating St. Nickolas Day Dec 6th, do it by punching a heretic in the face or by sleeping through a boring meeting.  Happy St. Nickolas day....praying attention - Pastor Andy

For several years there has been quite a bit of backlash for the use of an X when making reference to Xmas. It has everything to do with people believing that we continue to remove Jesus from the Christ Mass.  However, I use Xmas as a part of reclaiming an earlier Christian practice (circa 1500).  The X is not a real X it is the greek letter Chi.  It was the first letter in Χριστός or Christ.  The formation of the use of an X to represent Christ had been in use for several hundreds of years, dating back to the early Christians. And making sense of having X represent the one who has come to save us might be harder in a world that an X stands for so many profane uses.  X is in Xray, usually for finding disease.  Movies can be Xrated or even XXX rated. And what exactly does the X in Xbox stand for?

Reclaiming the Chi might help reclaim Christ in the Christ Mass (or Christmas). Instead of dismissing the use of Xmas maybe by reclaiming its use we can now have an automatic conversation starter, a kind of did you know moment.  And as you start teaching the world about the X, help reiterate for the world, the mas part of Xmas is a worship event focused on the child who has come into the world so that we might have life, this life, abundant and eternal.  X marks the spot for the child we name Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.  An important reminder whether you write that out as Christmas or return to the more traditional Xmas.