The Difference Between Jesus and Santa Claus

Sermon — November 30, 2025
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
(Matthew 24:42)

Well, the cardboard cornucopias and tin-foil turkeys have been banished from the shelves. The first snow flurries have fallen. The Christmas tree is up in the window across the street from my office—in fact, the Christmas tree’s been up in Thompson Square for about three weeks by now! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and so I want to turn my attention to the question I know that we’ve all been pondering since last December: What’s the difference between Jesus and Santa Claus, anyway?

Think about it. We have two bearded men, loved by billions of people around the world. We spend all December in a season of eager anticipation, as we wait for them to arrive. They come bearing hope and joy, but we also associate each one of them with a stern message of judgment. (They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake…) And finally, and perhaps most importantly: both Santa is going to show up in your house in the middle of the night; and so is Jesus, at least according to our Gospel reading today.

And these last two themes—of impending judgment and sudden arrival—are actually at the heart of the season of Advent, which we begin today.

One of the most startling things about observing the season of Advent in church is that it feels really different from the “holiday season” happening in the world around us. In our readings, and in our prayers and hymns, Advent is not primarily a time of sweetness and joy. It’s filled with surprise and alarm. Advent points back to the first coming of Jesus in the humble form of a baby born in Bethlehem, but it also points forward to the second coming of Christ in glory to judge the world. Of all the seasons in the church’s year, this is the only one that leans into this imagery of the end times, of chaos and judgment—and it can come as a surprise when someone’s just decided to come back to church in December for a little Christmas cheer and gets Advent instead.

This sense of impending judgment is one of the ways in which Jesus and Santa can be similar in some people’s experience. Both of these beloved men are often used to try to keep people in line. For example, I quoted earlier, from my least favorite song, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” To me, it’s the perfect example of how we sometimes imagine an all-knowing being—be it God or Santa Claus—as a kind of supernatural surveillance state. Many people are taught an idea of God that essentially says, “He’s making a list / Checking it twice, / Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice… He sees you when you’re sleeping / He knows when you’re awake / He knows if you’ve been bad or good / So be good, for goodness’ sake.” But this isn’t actually what Christianity is about. It’s exactly the kind of moralistic legalism that has been opposed by the greatest figures of our religion—by Jesus and Paul, Augustine and Luther—even though their followers often replicate it. The idea that there is a naughty list and a nice list, and that presents will come to those who are nice, but only coal for the naughty, is in fact the exact opposite of the good news of Jesus Christ, which tell us that every one of us is on both lists, the naughty and the nice; and that every one of us has nevertheless received the greatest gift, the love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. But of course, that’s the magic of Christmas, too—we do in fact misbehave all year, we are not the perfect people we pretend, but nevertheless, Santa Claus is coming to town, and let’s be honest: how many people actually end up being given a lump of coal?

So whether it’s Jesus or Santa Claus you follow, the good news is actually the same: while he wants you to be good, for goodness’ sake, in the end, the abundance of his mercy and love far exceed the strictness of his judgment. 

But there is one difference between Santa Claus and Jesus. (At least one.) And it’s about the timing. You know when Santa Claus is coming to town: Christmas Eve, late at night. He wants you to prepare, with cookies and milk, which you know won’t spoil because you know exactly when he’ll arrive. Santa Claus is so predictable that you can even track him in real time, on the NORAD Santa Tracker.

But Jesus is coming at an unexpected time. And that’s the real heart of what Jesus has to say in the gospel today. This passage has become caught up in conversations about what some modern Christians call “the Rapture,” this idea that there will be an end time in which Jesus will take some of the faithful away, and the rest will be “left behind.” This tends to lead to intense speculation about the exact timeline. You may have heard that another round of this occurred online this fall, when a preacher went viral with the prediction that the Rapture was coming on September 23, 2025. (Which it did not.)

This kind of calculation completely misses the point. Jesus tells us, again and again, that we do not and we cannot know “on what day [our] Lord is coming.” (Matt. 24:42) In fact, even Jesus doesn’t know, but only God the Father. (24:36) Jesus, the Son of Man, will return at an “unexpected hour.” (24:44) Ands the way it’s put in Biblical Greek is even stronger: at the very hour that you don’t expect, that’s when he’ll appear. So “keep awake,” Jesus says. (24:42) Don’t try to calculate the unknown date. Pay attention, every day, as if it might be the last.

Now, if Jesus really meant that he was going to return on a specific day and time to take away some of his followers and leave the rest behind, to inaugurate the end times on a day that we could name—on some particular Tuesday in 2025—then this would be the strangest practical joke of all time. “Keep awake!” Jesus said to his followers, in the year 33 AD. “Be alert!” And then—what? He did nothing for 2000 years, while they waited? While 80 generations of people were born, and lived whole lives of faith, and remained alert, and then died, Jesus just… didn’t show up? They waited in vain? Christianity is a weird religion, but come on. Even Christianity isn’t that weird.

If what Jesus says makes any sense at all, then it must be the case that Jesus has shown up during those 2000 years. Not predictably, like Santa Claus, once a year on Christmas Eve. But not just eventually, either—not only once at the end of time. For this to make sense, it must be the case that Jesus has shown up, continually, in our lives, at the very moments that we’ve least expected him.

Jesus has shown up, when we, like the generation of Noah, have been eating and drinking, marrying and being married, grinding meal and threshing grain and typing at our desks. Jesus has shown up while we’ve been roasting turkeys and hanging wreaths and sitting in holiday traffic. All the while that we’ve been living what we think are just our ordinary lives, Jesus has been breaking in, silently, sneakily, like a thief in the night.

He appears to us when two or three people are gathered together in prayer. He appears hidden under bread and wine on the altar. He shows up in the nagging feeling that there’s something you need to change in your life, and in the moment of surprising grace that allows you to be patient with the most frustrating person in your life or to be reconciled with someone you’ve struggled to forgive. Jesus tells us here in Matthew 24 that we should stay awake, lest we miss him appearing in our midst; and he also tells us in Matthew 25 that whenever we feed someone who is hungry, or clothe someone who is naked, or visit someone who is sick or in prison, he is there, and we do those things to him. (Matt. 25:34-40)

December is, for many people, the busiest time of the year. Ironically, this season of quiet anticipation is the time when most of us have the least attention to spare; when it’s difficult, amid the frenzied holiday preparations and complicated holiday emotions of this time of year, to pay attention to anything at all. But Jesus is going to appear to you, this Advent, at an unexpected hour. He is going to break into your life, like a thief coming in the night. And the question isn’t whether you’ll be ready to greet him, with cookie and with milk; it will be an unexpected hour, after all. The question isn’t whether you’ll be distracted, or busy, or tired; you probably well. The question is only whether you’ll be just awake enough to notice that he is there, and to accept the gifts that he is bringing into your life.