Coal Again!

In the Christmas season we find a more than usual amount of accountability about what we have done during the year. I cannot tell you how many parents I have heard coaxing their kids by saying that if they aren’t good Santa will not bring them anything on Christmas. This Christmas coercion usually begins about the Black Friday. The other night I was kidding a young man about a video game he was playing. The idea of the game was for Santa’s reindeer to kick him in the bottom and knock him down the chimney. I jokingly said to the kid that if he knocked Santa too much he would get coal in his stocking. I guess it was the vacant stare I received that made me realize he had no idea what I was talking about. Being raised on “A Charlie Brown Christmas” I knew too well the supposed disappointment at having a stocking full of coal. The idea of coal in the stocking was to signify that the person who received the coal was not good during the year. However, it seems rather cruel to give someone coal so it is not done much, if at all.

The impetus behind coal is the recognition that our behavior has consequences. It seems we only worry about this just before the Christmas season. It is only then that we worry about our conduct and what it may mean to our stocking contents on Christmas morning. It reminds me of a story about the Visigoths. When they became Christians they would have four priests – two on each side of a river – and the Visigoths would walk through the river holding their swords above the water line. They would be baptized up to their swords which allowed their swords to continue to conquer and pillage without eternal consequences or reprisals. They devised a loophole to continue their way of life and still be “Christians.” We contort things to avoid an avalanche of coal on Christmas.

 

Our accountability ends up being a year-end review. We see this examination as a chance to rationalize our actions throughout the year and try to justify them. It is amazing how short our memories are when we are involved in this type of situation. It is also amazing at how lucidly we can create rationalizations for each and every misstep. Personally, I can barely remember last week, much less last month or last January. While I am sure this saves me from suffering from too much guilt I am sure it does not saves me from the need for confession and repentance. This is why it is good to keep short accounts with God. I may not remember what I have done but God surely does. If the contents of my stocking are based solely on my year-long behaviors, without Jesus Christ in my life I would get coal, coal, coal! In fact, there is not enough coal in all of West Virginia to fill my stocking to the level of my misdeeds. Even if the coal deposited in the stocking was just symbolic, the stocking would still need to be full. Coal is actually a sign of our need for a Savior, even one born in a manger. There is a song by the Newsboys that says: “When we get what we don’t deserve, it’s a real good thing. When we don’t get what we deserve, it’s a real good thing.” This is especially true on Christmas. Just think of the run on coal if all of loved ones had to be honest and give as our deeds deserve. Thank God he does not act like that. 

When we repent and confess, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins. (1 John 1:9) The Bible has three promises about our sins that offer us a sense of relief. It says that God puts them as far away as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12); he puts them behind his back (Isaiah 38:17); and he remembers them no more (Jeremiah 31:34). If you look at the earth, going from north to south you eventually hit the opposite direction. This does not occur however when you are going from east to west. You can keep going east as far as you would like and you will never reach west. When God puts our sins behind his back it means they are no longer in his sight. Now, my mother always said that she had eyes in the back of her head. This doesn’t mean God is incapable of seeing behind him but that once he places them behind his back they are no longer in his line of sight. Finally, the Bible says that God remembers our sins no more. This does not mean he is a giant senile grandfather in a rocking chair and he can’t remember things he should. This is a choice on God’s part that once confessed he will erase the board clean and not recall them ever again. This is eternal coal abatement for those of us that deserve coal in our stocking. So, as we approach Christmas and hang our stocking by the chimney with care, or wherever you hang them if you don’t have a chimney, remember this: God will not give you coal this Christmas. He will give you a Savior!