St Nicholas

 

I hate to tell you, but I’m not going to preach on today’s readings! Instead, for reasons that will become clear in a bit, I’m going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a – well, not in a galaxy far away, as this story takes place on this earth, but certainly in a country far away, a little boy was born. No, not Jesus of Nazareth – this birth took place a couple of hundred years later, and the little boy grew up to be one of Jesus’ followers. He was born in the city of Patara, in what is now Turkey, and you will remember from your reading in Acts that this was one of the places that St Paul visited during his travels, so it’s quite probable that his parents or grandparents were either converted by St Paul, or by the church he established there. His parents were rich, by the standards of their day, and when they died when the boy was quite young, he inherited all their money. But because he loved Jesus, he didn’t think it right to keep the money for himself, and began to give it away to the poor and needy in the area.

He dedicated his whole life to God, and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. One famous story about him tells of a poor man with three daughters, whom he could not hope to marry off as he had nothing to give for their dowries, something that was considered vital back in the day. And the future for unmarried women back then was bleak – slavery was probably the best option. So this young Bishop, anonymously, threw three purses of gold, one for each daughter, through the window of their house, and the purses landed in the shoes the girls had put to dry by the fire.

There are lots of other stories about this man – some probably legendary, as when three theological students, traveling on their way to study in Athens were robbed and murdered by wicked innkeeper, who hid their remains in a large pickling tub. It so happened that the bishop, traveling along the same route, stopped at this very inn. In the night he dreamed of the crime, got up, and summoned the innkeeper. As he prayed earnestly to God the three boys were restored to life and wholeness.

There are several stories of his calming storms for sailors, and one story tells how during a famine in Myra, the bishop worked desperately hard to find grain to feed the people. He learned that ships bound for Alexandria with cargos of wheat had anchored in Andriaki, the harbor for Myra. The good bishop asked the captain to sell some of the grain from each ship to relieve the people's suffering. The captain said he could not because the cargo was "meted and measured." He must deliver every bit and would have to answer for any shortage. The Bishop assured the captain there would be no problems when the grain was delivered. Finally, reluctantly, the captain agreed to take one hundred bushels of grain from each ship. The grain was unloaded and the ships continued on their way.

When they arrived and the grain was unloaded, it weighed exactly the same as when it was put on board. As the story was told, all the emperor's ministers worshiped and praised God with thanksgiving for God's faithful servant!

Back in Myra, the Bishop distributed grain to everyone in Lycia and no one was hungry. The grain lasted for two years, until the famine ended. There was even enough grain to provide seed for a good harvest.

The Bishop, of course, was made a saint when he died. And the stories of his miracles didn’t stop coming. One very early story tells how the townspeople of Myra were celebrating the good saint on the eve of his feast day when a band of Arab pirates from Crete came into the district. They stole treasures from the church to take away as booty. As they were leaving town, they snatched a young boy, Basilios, to make into a slave. The emir, or ruler, selected Basilios to be his personal cupbearer, as not knowing the language, Basilios would not understand what the king said to those around him. So, for the next year Basilios waited on the king, bringing his wine in a beautiful golden cup. For Basilios' parents, devastated at the loss of their only child, the year passed slowly, filled with grief. As the saint’s next feast day approached, Basilios' mother would not join in the festivity, as it was now a day of tragedy. However, she was persuaded to have a simple observance at home – with quiet prayers for Basilios' safekeeping. Meanwhile, as Basilios was fulfilling his tasks serving the emir, he was suddenly whisked up and away. The saint appeared to the terrified boy, blessed him, and set him down at his home back in Myra. Imagine the joy and wonderment when Basilios amazingly appeared before his parents, still holding the king's golden cup!

This man became the patron saint of children, and the patron saint of sailors, too. And as the years and centuries passed, he was revered in Christian countries all over the world, both Orthodox and Catholic. In the 11th century his remains were moved from Myra, now called Demre, which was under Moslem rule, to a town in Italy called Bari, where he is venerated to this day. Nuns started to give poor children little gifts of food – oranges and nuts, mostly – on his feast day. And his cult spread right across Christendom.

You will notice that I haven’t said his name! Who knows who I have been talking about? Yes, St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. And now, these days, transmogrified into Santa Claus.

Today is his feast day, which is why I’ve been telling you his story, but, of course we associate him more with Christmas. Although in many European countries, children would have put their shoes outside their bedroom doors last night for St Nicholas to fill with small gifts. A few years ago, Robert and I went to the Christmas markets in Cologne on St Nicholas’ Day, and there was St Nicholas on the public transport network there, giving sweets to children (with their parents’ permission, of course); we saw him doing it!

But the association with Christmas came about because of the Protestant reformation – seriously! If you were Protestant, you didn’t revere saints, so you couldn’t possibly have St Nicholas giving you oranges and nuts on his feast day!

Here in England, with our gift for religious compromise, our folk traditions changed to include Father Christmas and yule logs and things, but in many Protestant countries, particularly the USA, Christmas Day was considered “just another day”. But it seems that German colonists brought the St Nicholas tradition to the USA, and gradually he became the “jolly elf” of the famous poem.

And, of course, the illustrations for the Coca-Cola advertisements began to settle his image as the fat old man we know today. A far cry, really, from a young Bishop in ancient Turkey!

But what, you may ask, has this got to do with us?

How does it affect us on this second Sunday of Advent in this pandemic year, when many of us won’t be able to celebrate Christmas as we usually do?

It’s going to be a strange, sad Christmas for many this year. Okay, some people will be glad not to have to socialise or perhaps even more glad to have an excuse not to have to invite their family to eat and drink too much, but for many people it will be a real hardship. We’ll hate not being allowed to sing carols, I expect – I know I shall, and belting them out in the shower really doesn’t count! Nor does singing on Zoom, as it distorts so!

But I find it comforting to know that even the secular side of Christmas has its roots in Christianity. Father Christmas was a devout Christian! And he is going to come this year – our politicians have said so!

Similarly it is comforting to know that we are loved by God. Isaiah, as we heard earlier, reminds us that

God, like a good shepherd, takes care of his people.
    He gathers them like lambs in his arms.
    He holds them close, while their mothers walk beside him.

I don’t know about you, but this year I really need to be reminded of God’s love. Emmanuel means “God with us”, and whatever happens, whatever we can or can’t do this year, we know God will be with us.

So as we prepare for our scaled-down Christmas, and continue with whatever Advent observance we have undertaken, let’s remember that even Santa Claus worshipped the God who is with us. Amen.

The Coming King

Preached via Zoom during lockdown.

So, Advent.

In a normal year people would starting to celebrate Christmas already –
the shops would have had their decorations up since the beginning of last month, or even earlier,

and the round of office parties, works celebrations, school festivities would be starting any day now.
And the endless tapes of carols and Christmas songs that would be played in the shops, I should think they’d drive the shop assistants mad!

But in a normal year, here in Church, Christmas wouldn’t have started yet,

and wouldn’t for another four weeks.  In fact, it still hasn’t, and still won’t,

because right now we are celebrating Advent, and it seems to be another penitential time, like Lent.

Were we allowed public worship, those churches that have different colours for the seasons would have brought out the purple hangings, and many would have no flowers except for an Advent wreath.

But not this year, when we are still in lockdown until, at the soonest, the end of this week, when shops where we might be doing our Christmas shopping are closed, where we can’t even meet in person to worship.  I’d even trimmed some masks in purple –the colour for Lent and Advent –specially!!!  I hope I’ll be able to use them before Christmas, but who knows?

But, even this year, Advent is really a season of hope.  We look forward to “the last day when Christ shall come again” to establish the Kingdom on earth.  We also look back to those who’ve been part of God’s story, including John the Baptist and Jesus’ Mother, Mary.

Today, though, our readings are about the coming King.  Our first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, tells how the prophet, and perhaps the people for whom he was speaking, longed and longed to see God in action.

“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains would tremble before you!

As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil,

come down to make your name known to your enemies

and cause the nations to quake before you!”

I think we can probably all identify with that this year!

Scholars think that this part of Isaiah was written very late, after the people of Judah had returned from exile. They would have remembered the stories of the wonderful things God had done in the olden days, in the days of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Jacob, of Moses, and of David the King – and then, they would have looked round and said “But hey, why isn’t any of this happening today?”

They reckoned the answer must be because they were so sinful.

“You come to the help of those who gladly do right,

who remember your ways.

But when we continued to sin against them,

you were angry.

How then can we be saved?

All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf,

and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

No-one calls on your name

or strives to lay hold of you;

for you have hidden your face from us

and made us waste away because of our sins.”

It does sound very much as though the prophet were longing for God, but somehow couldn’t find him, in the mists of human sinfulness and this world’s total abandonment of God.

One of the interesting things about this pandemic is how it has begun to bring people back to God.  It’s too early to tell whether it will last – after all,

“God and the Doctor we alike adore

But only when in danger, not before;

The danger o'er, both are alike requited,

God is forgotten, and the Doctor slighted.”

Nevertheless, you got people watching streamed services who wouldn’t normally go to Church; I believe All Souls, Langham Place, had a vast international congregation during the first lockdown.  And I have noticed that many YouTube services, those from my daughter’s church, for instance, or my mother’s, get many more views than they ever get congregations on a Sunday!  So God is definitely doing something during this time; exactly what, I don’t know, and what God is saying about how to be church in the 21^st century, I also don’t know – but I suspect we must think about this, and not just go back to “same old, same old” when restrictions are lifted, hopefully before this time next year.

Isaiah longed and longed to see God at work, feeling quite sure that God had abandoned his people.

Of course, as it turned out, God hadn’t abandoned his people at all! Jesus came to this earth, lived among us, and died for us, and Isaiah’s people now knew the remedy for their sin.  But Jesus himself tells us, in our second reading, that his coming to live in Palestine as a human being isn’t the end of the story, either.

Somehow, someday, he will come back again. He obviously doesn’t know all that much about it while he is on earth, and rather discourages us from speculation as to when or how. But he draws pictures for us:

“The sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light;

the stars will fall from the sky,

and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds,

from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

But elsewhere he tells us that even when there are plagues and wars and rumours of war, we mustn’t assume he is going to return imminently.

Mind you, today, as at no other time in history,

communications are such that if Jesus were to come back,

we’d know about it almost as soon as it happened –

look how quickly news spreads around the world these days.

Half the time you hear about it on Facebook or Twitter before the BBC has even picked up on it. 

Although that is very often fake news,

people either posting misleading information or genuine misunderstandings.

But Jesus' return would be something totally unmistakable.

But lots of generations before ours have thought that Jesus might come back any minute now,

from the overthrow of the Temple in 70 AD,

through the various plagues and pandemics,

wars and invasions,

right down to this current pandemic.

And Christians throughout history have lived their lives expecting him to come home.

We have remembered Jesus’ warnings about being prepared for him to come, but He hasn’t come.  And we get to the stage where we, too, cry with Isaiah:

“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains would tremble before you!”

 

Like Isaiah, we long and long to see God come and intervene in this world, and wish that He would hurry up.  And that’s perfectly natural, of course.  Some folk have even got to the stage of believing it won’t happen, and have given up on God completely.  But Jesus said it will happen, and one has to assume He knew what he was talking about.

But that doesn’t mean that we can blame God – if You had come back before now, this wouldn’t have happened. Every generation has been able to say that to God, and it’s not made a blind bit of difference.  So maybe there’s something else.

You see, in one way, Jesus has come back.

Do you remember what happened on the Day of Pentecost, in that upper room? God’s Holy Spirit descended on those gathered there,looking like tongues of fire, and with a noise like a rushing mighty wind, and the disciples were empowered to talk about Jesus.

And we know from history, and from our own experience, that God the Holy Spirit still comes to us, still fills us, still empowers us.

One of the purposes of these so-called penitential seasons is to give us space to examine ourselves and see if we have drifted away from God, to come back and to ask to be filled anew with the Holy Spirit. Then we are empowered to live our lives as Jesus would wish.  We don't have to struggle and strain and strive to “get it right” by our own efforts. God himself is within us, enabling us from the inside. Jesus doesn’t just provide us with an example to follow, but actually enables us to do it, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

All of us will face the end of the world one day.  It might be the global end of the world, that Jesus talks about, or it might just be the end of our personal world. Until this year, we expected, here in the West, to live out our life span to the end, and many of us, I am sure, will do just that, pandemic or no pandemic.  But we can’t rely on that.

You never know when terrorists will attack – or even muggers, or just a plain accident.  We can’t see round corners; we don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

None of us foresaw this pandemic, which has taken so many lives – although, it has to be said, far fewer than in most previous pandemics.  The Black Death, after all, is thought to have killed over half the population of Britain, which makes the 0.08% of the population who have so far died of Covid-19 look like peanuts!

Although, of course, each and every one of those who has died has probably left their family devastated, we must never forget that they are individuals, not numbers. They are people who God loved, and knew, and cared for.

But whether it is tomorrow, or twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years from now, whether of Covid-19, of an accident, or of “frailty of old age”, which is what they put on my father’s death certificate, one day each and every one of us will die, and then, at last, we will meet Jesus face to face.  And we need to be ready.  We need to know that we have lived as God wants us to live – and when we’ve screwed up, as we always do and always will, we’ve come back to God and asked forgiveness and asked God to renew us and refill us with his Holy Spirit.

We can only live one day at a time, but each day should, I hope, be bringing us nearer to the coming of the King.
Amen.