I wish I could express how thankful I am. Robin and I have been talking this morning about the blessings of Ragtown Gospel Theater. “SAY NICKLAUS” opened last weekend, and apparently everyone who came has been telling everyone they know, “You’ve got to see this play!” The phone has been ringing off the wall, which, it occurs to me, is a phrase that no longer makes sense in this iEverything age. Since I carry my phone in my back pocket…well let’s not even go there.
Suffice to say, people are agreeing with what I saw last Friday evening when I got to see “SAY NICKLAUS” straight through for the first time. I just sat there smiling, and loving every minute of it, thinking everyone needs to see this.
I started out wanting to write a play celebrating, and perhaps defending the things we treasure about Christmas. A generation ago, or even ten years ago would any Christian you knew accuse Santa Claus of stealing the focus of Christmas from Jesus? I knew a few kooks who wouldn’t allow Santa to leave toys for their kids, but they also dressed them like they came to school in a horse and buggy. It wasn’t a popular thing to condemn the spirit of joy and unbridled excitement that was at the heart of so many treasured family memories.
Now, it seems to be getting popular to rob children of something beautiful, and pure, and magical.
It seems that it all started with the condemnation of Trick-Or-Treating, which was an easy target, since everyone knows that children wearing costumes and receiving candy from friends and neighbors leads straight to devil worship. But then it moved on to Easter Egg Hunts, and now, like all incremental attacks on freedom, gaining momentum fed by success, it has moved on to the point that Santa Claus is being subtly vilified in many Christian circles with a puritanical indignation, and there is a growing acceptance that the whole thing…the tree, the gifts, and even Santa himself (Santa is, after all, an anagram for Satan) being a celebration with pagan roots, and somehow wicked and potentially damaging to vulnerable children.
Baloney.
What it is, is a subtle erosion of the fabric of our families. Those are precious shared family experiences that knit us together, and things we have always held in common with other families. Christian and Lost. Even the Lost could be touched by the love expressed and shared through the experience of Christmas…the experience of selfless love. How often has that softening of the heart been the door to salvation?
So I began to write on that soapbox, and then as the Spirit always does, I was guided toward something richer and deeper: The Why.
People who don’t understand who they are in Christ need rules. Rules keep them in line, and better yet, they keep others in line. Rules are necessary to keep a sinful, depraved nature under control. Rules give us the knowledge of what is good and what is evil.
Except…Jesus was born to die for us, so that we could become a new creation, with a new nature. The Saved are not fulfilled by evil, and when we succumb to it, the abhorrence of it washes over us. That, if nothing else, should prove to us that we are no longer slaves to sin, but something new, born again by the Spirit, and perfect within, where the Spirit of Christ is pleased to dwell. Sin simply does not make a Christian happy.
From that understanding, not rules, our behavior naturally changes. Our task, therefore, is to live joyfully, not only before the Lost, so they see that we have something they need, but just as importantly, we who have received an understanding of our amazing acceptability before God should live just as freely and joyfully before the sadly blind Christian who believes behavior improvement is their road to Heaven. Jesus paid it all. It is all about Him and what He did, not about us and what we’re doing and not doing. It is about love. If the world is going to change, it will be because people finally get that.
“Say Nicklaus” is about love. And God is love. It doesn’t get richer and deeper than that.
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