Replacing Christ with Fiction

© 2015 by Tom Boynton (editing by Kathy Boynton)

While many are celebrating Christ’s birth, a very popular story is replacing Christ in the hearts of many children. This fictional story about a red-suited visitor is presented to young children as truth in order to fill them with joy and excitement. However, this temporary euphoria of joy is eventually crushed when the child finally learns that the loveable visitor, in whom he or she believed, is not real.

This fictional character seems to be almost omniscient, for he “sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been bad or good…” He appears almost omnipotent for he has power to grant wishes to every well behaved child in the world. He also seems endowed with omnipresence as his reindeer sleigh appears on every rooftop at Christmas Eve to deliver presents down the chimney. However, these attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence rightfully belong only to God.

My father’s cousin was taught, by his Christian parents, that this red-suited visitor was real. They also taught him that Christ was real. When he finally discovered that the red-suited man wasn’t real, he began rejecting what his parents had taught him about Christ the Savior. He reasoned that, since they had lied to him about the man in red, they had also lied about Christ. As a result, he began to doubt the reality of God the Savior. Each year this imaginary sleigh driver ends up replacing Christ in the hearts and minds of millions of children. In fact many children never even hear of Christ. They know only about the man in red.

Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ, God the Son, was the sacrificial Lamb of God who came to

“save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21)!

The red-suited visitor can’t match Christ’s wondrous accomplishment! Jesus, Himself said,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

The apostle Paul urges Christians to speak truth and avoid lying.

“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25).

Let’s avoid replacing Christ, in our children’s hearts, by false stories. Instead, let us focus their hearts on the real and vibrant truth of the only true Savior, God the Son, Jesus Christ the Lord!

 

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