What Buddy the Elf can teach you about Jesus

Christmas time brings out the best of holiday movies. The classics range from Home Alone, It’s A Wonderful Life, Charlie Brown’s Christmas, and Elf. Speaking of Elf, do you not just love Buddy?! He’s so fun and brings a bit of innocence to the holiday stress. 

One of my favorite scenes in Elf is when Buddy is in the department store and they announce over the speaker that Santa will be in the store the following day. Buddy screams “Santa” as if he had just won the lottery. He continues to proclaim, “Santa”, “Santa is coming” and then screams “I know him!” 

Buddy soon learns the store, in his opinion, was not properly prepared for the arrival of Santa. He spends all night decorating, perfecting lights, making sure al the details of decor and holiday spirit are radiating throughout the store in expectation of Santa’s arrival. 

I wonder how many times we get this excited about Jesus. If someone announced that Jesus was coming the very next day to your place of work, would you be so excited as to proclaim “I know Him” and go above the expected normal duties to make sure Jesus feels welcomed? What about when Jesus comes back for His Church? Are we making preparations now for when Jesus comes and we can proclaim “I know Him!”? 

We become so complacent in our daily routine that we miss Jesus. The worship of the Lord, the relationship we claim to have, and our relationship with Christ is nothing more than a familiarity similar to knowing the local barista at our favorite coffee shop. We know Jesus comes to greet us during each Mass. Do we really believe He comes to meet us? 

We know Jesus is in the adoration chapel. Do we get so excited that we go beyond our normal convenience of daily schedule and make a point to spend some time with Him in adoration? 

Buddy shows us how we should be responding to Jesus by the way He responds to Santa. What happens when Buddy sees the department store’s “Santa” and he is fake. Buddy recognizes him immediately as a fake. He points out that he is an imposter and he is not Santa. 

How many times have we believed something was of Christ when it was fake? How many times have we fallen for a facade created by Hell because we could not recognize Jesus? 

Buddy knew it was not Santa because He truly had a real relationship with the legitimate Santa. Perhaps we need to evaluate our own relationship with Jesus and ask ourselves if we could recognize Jesus as strongly and easily as Buddy recognized it was not the real Santa.