I was once asked to play Santa Claus. To be exact I was asked to be St Nicholas at a primary school in an Austrian village on 6 December. It wasn’t an alternative to Santa Claus as St. Nicholas was probably the original Santa Claus, and the red clothes and pointed hat are a relic of the bishop’s robes and mitre. Feeling rather splendid in the Episcopal robes and white beard I was introduced to each pupil, and was reminded what a good child each had been during the year. Then Nicholas asked for the special gift we had for this child and it appeared from a great bag. The joy of this day came from the joy of the children for these presents were not the necessary warm sweaters, or the useful shoes and the practical stockings, but bright dazzling gifts that caught the imagination.
It reminded me of the story a woman once told me of her childhood Christmas. Her father had died while she and her sisters were small but they were never in want thanks to kind neighbours. Still her special memory was of their parish priest whose Christmas gift was always a big tin of Roses sweets. She loved to lift the sweets in all their various shapes, sizes and dazzling colours, with the light catching their brightly coloured wrappers as they fell back into the tin like miracles falling from heaven. They went far beyond what anyone could dream of.
Anyone who has ever played Santa Claus knows that joy in a child’s eyes and understands why Christmas is not the time for the useful gifts alone, there has to be the wonderful. Christmas is when God went beyond the everyday wonder of creation and the generous provision he has made for all - or did before the greedy grabbed more than they could ever need for themselves. God isn’t just practical, utilitarian, even-handed in his Christmas gift, it is absurdly beyond anything we deserve, or even need for survival; it is beyond anything we could have imagined: His Son became one of us and of his fullness we have all received. God can never abandon the human race now without abandoning his own Son. The Christmas gift lets the child know that there is someone who loves him, unconditionally, extravagantly, yes even when he does not deserve anything like it.
A black Jesuit from Africa could not be St. Nicholas that day because at one time a black man accompanied Nicholas with a stick to beat children who had been bold. So the Black Jesuit felt black men had best hide on 6 December. It was all gift now.