Gospel According to Santa

Ethan gets a weekly newspaper called God's World News. It has short articles with current events that have a Christian worldview. Anyway, I got an email from them today...... as follows.
It was really.... um..... it made me..... pensive. I guess that is the only way to describe it. Maybe I should say it was thought provoking. As follows:

The Gospel According to Santa Claus

As a child in Minneapolis, I grew up listening to Gene Autry sing the
glad tidings, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." But, coupled with the herald of
good news were words of exhortation and warning:
You'd better watch out.You'd better not cry.You'd better not pout.I'm telling you why.Santa Claus is coming to town.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.
I understand this to mean: He comes and his reward is with him. He will render according to each one according to his deeds.

To the righteous, he will give gifts from the abundance
of his workshop. To the wicked, he will leave a lump of coal in their
stockings--an obvious sign of fire and burning.
We were all forced to ask ourselves, in the light of his inevitable coming, "How should we then live? What sort of people ought we to be, knowing that his coming is at hand? Ought we not strive to be good and found well-pleasing in his sight?"
The answer was clear. It was so clear that we even submitted to the exhortations of others, for they encouraged us and admonished us, lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin and fall short of the blessed gifts.

Now this scenario could have two radically different interpretations among those of us who waited for his coming.
Some would stand in the department store at the place where Santa
received petitions and cry with loud voices, "O Santa, I am thankful that I am
not like these other disobedient children. I have done that which was expected
of me. I have neither cried nor pouted. I have not left unmade the beds which
were to be made. I have eaten my vegetables, cleaned my room, done my homework, and gone to bed at the appointed hour without grumbling. Therefore, O Santa, reward me according to my works and give me presents at your coming."
But others withdrew into a corner of the store where you could hardly see them and
said, "O Santa, be merciful to me a sinner. I have forfeited all claim to your
presents and am not worthy to see your coming."
I contend that position #1 is a profound misunderstanding of how the presents from Santa Claus were actually received. Is there any child who receives gifts because he or she has merited them? Does not Santa Claus look down from his sleigh and pass judgment: "There is none who deserves an American Girl doll or an iPod. No, not one!" When faced with the thought of earning his presents, ought not everyone strike his breast and cry out for grace?
Insight into the human heart ought to teach us that Christmas, even in its most secular version, is about GRACE to the undeserving.
Presents come by grace alone. But the hardness of the human heart in its false
pride re-interprets that to mean "gifts come by good works."
It is the tendency of the human heart to turn a situation meant to teach grace into a
situation of merit. This is not the fault of the situation. In fact, the situation exposes the nature of the heart.
So, Israel turned a situation of grace into one of merit. Israel was a people created by the grace of God, redeemed from Egypt by the grace of God, borne on eagles' wings of grace to the Holy Mountain where they received as a gift the gracious words of God which would permit them to dwell in his holy presence. But over the years, they changed works in the context of grace into works in the context of merit.

People today do the very same thing to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If
ever the message of grace was clearly spoken, it was by Christ--"Flesh cannot
inherit the kingdom of God. You must be born from above by the power of the Holy
Spirit." Behold, he is coming, and his reward is with him. He shall render to
everyone according to his deeds. But they are not deeds of merit whereby we
recommend ourselves to God. They are the deeds of repentant sinners, performed
only through the gracious power of the Holy Spirit. All things are from him and
through him and unto him.
The angels spoke clearly at his birth: "Peace on earth. Good will to men." But hard hearts have taken these words not as God's peace and God's good will of grace, but as man's peace and self-made good will.
Christmas exposes a radical difference between the people of God and
the peoples of the world. We have acknowledged that difference as one of the
reasons for establishing Christian schools and home schools. Now it ought to be
our concern that, at Christmas and throughout the year, our children will be
instructed to reject the gospel of earned presents for the gospel of presents
through grace.
-- Robert R. Drake