Santa, who is he?

When I hear this story from people who are Christians and are excited about celebrating Christmas and the birth of Jesus in church, my heart aches. If I feel bad, how much more so must God feel?

Today, I want to talk about ‘Santa.’

What is Santa’s real identity?
Santa Claus, who flies through the sky on a snow sled, carrying gifts and delivering them to good children. When I think about it, I wonder what exactly Santa has to do with the Bible. On December 25th, Christmas, Christmas Day, which is said to be the birthday of Jesus. As I mentioned in the previous post, I want to emphasize that December 25th has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. There is no record of it anywhere in the Bible. These two facts alone show that ‘Santa’ is not in the Bible and is a fictional character created by people.

Let’s go back to history to the Roman era. After the Roman Catholic religion, which was the main culprit in changing God’s time and law according to the Bible prophecy, was created, there was a great migration of the Germanic people in AD 379. This caused the Roman Empire to split, and the Germanic people, who were called barbarians at the time, began to convert their religion to Christianity for political purposes. After a long period of time, the Scandinavians also converted to Christianity. Originally, the religion of the Germanic people and the Scandinavians was polytheistic. That is why they had their own gods and various religious customs. Roman Catholicism was a religion that was created by accepting numerous pagan ideas that the Romans had already worshipped. Let’s focus on the fact that the fictional character called ‘Santa’ is very similar to the gods that the Germanic people worshipped. Among the gods of the Germanic people, there was the one-eyed Odin, a representative god of Northern Europe.

The Vikings celebrated a winter festival called Yule, where they sang songs and decorated their houses with evergreen trees. And in this Yule festival, their god Odin was present. Odin was the leader of Asgard (the heavenly home of the gods), a god with a thick white beard and said to have magical powers. At the winter solstice, Odin rode his eight-legged horse Sleipnir and enjoyed a hunting party flying through the sky. This legendary horse jumped a great distance. Germanic children filled their boots with carrots and straw and placed them near the chimney so that Sleipnir could eat them. They believed that Odin left presents next to his boots wherever he flew. Strangely enough, just as Odin lived in the cold Nordic wilderness, Santa also lives in the cold North Pole. It is surprising how much Santa resembles Odin today.

There was also a Germanic goddess called Frau Holda. There is a story that Frau Holda flies through the sky at night and leaves presents for children. The Germanic people left food or milk for her on the evening of December 24th, calling this day ‘Mother Night’. This part is very similar to the tradition of many children leaving milk and sweets for Santa. In Australia and England, sherry and beer are sometimes left.

Another 13th century Italian legend tells of an old soot-covered woman called Le Befana who flew through chimneys on a broomstick to children’s houses, giving presents or candy to good children and leaving lumps of coal for naughty children.

The Roman Catholic Church created the character of "Santa" by mixing the information about the 3rd-4th century saint and bishop of Myra, Greece, called St. Nicholas, with these pagan customs and myths. Nicholas was a Christian before Constantine made Christianity legal and became a Catholic bishop after Christianity was legal. After his death, two theories established him as the patron saint of children and a gift-giving wizard.

The first was a story about a father who threw three bags of gold coins into a chimney, saving his daughters from prostitution, and the other was that three boys were murdered, but Nicholas prayed to God and the children were resurrected. These stories led to the patron saint of Nicholas, who was celebrated on December 6 in Europe, especially in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, as a festival of gift-giving between 1200 and 1500. After the Reformation, the Catholic saint lost his reputation, but the tradition continued in the church.

Giving gifts to children was considered a celebration of the baby Jesus. On the evening of December 5, children would place their shoes on the windowsill or by the door of their rooms, hoping that Saint Nicholas would fill them with nuts, fruit, or sweets. Rudolf may also have originated from Odin's Sleipnir. The name of St. Nicholas is ‘Sinterklaas’ in Dutch, which is pronounced ‘Santa Claus’ in English. At that time, Santa was said to have been tall and thin but had an elegant appearance. There is a story that the red costume Santa wears today was created by Coca-Cola because of the color of Coca-Cola, but Coca-Cola denied this. Before that, a writer named Washington Irving described Santa as a fat person, and in 1822, a theologian named Clement Clarke Moore published a poem called ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ through an American publisher. In this poem, Santa was described as a dwarf. In 1881, cartoonist Thomas Nast drew Santa with a red suit and white fur trim, and in 1931, when Coca-Cola sales were rapidly declining compared to the summer, American illustrator Sundblom used the image of Santa Claus, inspired by the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” to increase winter sales. In short, the character “Santa” is not in the Bible or a real person. It is truly absurd that a church that believes in God regards such a character created and refined in people’s imagination as a symbol of Jesus’ birthday. Some say, “Isn’t it just something to enjoy? Isn’t it something to celebrate?” But think about it. What can we learn from the history of Christmas and Santa’s birth? “Santa” is a product of Christianity’s process of accepting pagan ideas and customs and becoming corrupted, and the time when this Santa appears is “Christmas.”

In short, the character of ‘Santa’ is not in the Bible, nor is he a real person. It is truly absurd that a church that believes in God regards a character created and refined in people’s imagination as a symbol of Jesus’ birthday. Some say, ‘Isn’t it just something to enjoy? Isn’t it something to celebrate?’ But think about it. What can we learn from the history of Christmas and the birth of Santa? ‘Santa’ is a product of Christianity becoming corrupted by accepting pagan ideas and customs, and the time when this Santa appears is ‘Christmas.’

There are similar events recorded in the history of the Bible. The Israelites who forsook God’s commandment to forbid idolatry and made the golden calf idol they worshiped in Egypt in remembrance of God and arbitrarily made and served God’s feasts (Exodus 32:1-5)

Remember the sin of Jeroboam who blocked the Israelites who were going to Jerusalem in Judah to serve God, declared the golden calf as God, and arbitrarily established God’s feasts (1 Kings 12:25-33).

Their ending, as the Bible says, leaves us with a very important lesson for us who live today.

(Romans 15:4) For whatever was written aforetime was written for our instruction, that through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.

God forbade idolatry by saying, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

However, people are rejoicing in the sin of idolatry, which God abhors. They are following pagan ideas that are not in the Bible and believing that they are holy.

The World Mission Society Church of God prohibits idolatry in obedience to the word of God. Naturally, we do not celebrate or observe Christmas. If God was actually born on this earth in human form, then that day is a significant day that we, who will be saved, should celebrate. If we do not know when that day is, we should absolutely not eat, drink, and spend a wild night following the customs and practices of foreign gods on any day - the day of worship of foreign gods brought about by idolatry. God came again according to the prophecy of the Bible and conveyed the truth to people who were confused by Santa and Christmas and discerned what is true and what is false. If we look at it with the eyes of prophecy, we can realize that Christ Ahnsahnghong, who made all of this known, is the Savior recorded in the Bible.