The Legacy of St Nicholas
Will someone please think of the children?
One could argue that St Nicholas’s Day should be Christmas Eve. That’s the date when “Santa Claus” comes down chimneys delivering presents to children. St Nicholas’s Day falls on 6th December, the day he died in 343. He is remembered in many countries with all kinds of traditions, not least gifts to children. How is St Nicholas connected with children? The answer, mercifully, has nothing to do with Coca-Cola.
St Nicholas was from Anatolia in what is now Turkey. In the third century, when Nicholas was born in 270, the area was a key part of the early church. Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra and, if the stories are to be believed, led a life replete with incident and anecdote, ranging from calming a storm at sea and slapping the heretic Arius at a church council (see pic, inset). This astonishing collection of stories explain why he is considered a patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, and the unmarried.
The association with children is the one with most resonance in England today, which is derived from two stories in Nicholas’s life. The first concerns a poor man (left pic) with three unmarried daughters who could not afford a dowry for them to marry. The fate of these girls looked grim given the options for unmarried poor women. The brothel beckoned. But Nicholas, sparing the father’s pride, pushed gold coins through his window so that the man’s daughters could marry and prosper in their own households. Some say the coins were put in a stocking, hence the traditional Christmas stockings.
The second story relates to Nicholas’s discovery that a butcher had slaughtered and cut up three boys during a famine and put them in a barrel (bottom right pic). According to the legend, Nicholas raised them from the dead. Despite being a cessationist, I am more than open to the intervention of the divine in all kinds of mysterious ways, but this post-apostolic miracle is a little steep, even for me. But it does explain why you might see St Nicholas depicted in front of a barrel with three boys looking up at him. (The barrel led some to believe Nicholas was the patron saint of brewers.)
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A Modest Proposal
These stories inherently teach us about the value of children within the Christian faith. Kindness to children may seem obvious and has done for centuries. The suggestion that they should not be eaten during a time of famine does not seem particularly radical to us. In 1729, Jonathan Swift’s satirical Modest Proposaldepended on the notion that adults eating their babies is utterly repellent. Which it is.
So why does the Bible contain numerous warnings against child sacrifice many times over? This warning from Leviticus 20:1-2 is not unusual:
The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death.
I didn’t want to ruin your day – or spoil your lunch – with all five verses of this long, specific warning. The consequences of sacrificing children to Molek are spelled out. Clearly, child sacrifice was the practice of those living in the land of Canaan. So much for Rousseau’s noble savage. Surely the Israelites would never join in with such a practice? They do. Kings of Israel like Manasseh and Ahaz, sacrifice children and these are not isolated examples.
Child sacrifice was worryingly acceptable. This might explain why Abraham was able to take his son Isaac to a mountain to sacrifice him. He did not seem to be surprised to be asked to do so. Isaac is puzzled. Abraham is confident that God has a plan so that the promises made to him about descendants can be fulfilled. The big surprise in that story is that the Lord intervenes, preventing the sacrifice of a child, accepting the sacrifice of a ram having a bad day caught in a thicket in Isaac’s place. This story is an utter repudiation of child sacrifice. It is not what the Lord desires.
Let the Little Children Come To Me
Over a thousand years later, this compassion for children can be seen in the ministry of Jesus, when it seemed to have been a surprise all over again. After the astonishingly odd Transfiguration in Mark 9:1-13, Jesus is presented with a boy who has an unclean spirit who has been sporadically trying to kill the child over the years:
Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” (Mark 9:21-22)
Interesting that the spirit should be throwing the child onto the fire or drowning him, as if trying to kick start a child sacrifice. Naturally, Jesus rebuked the spirit, which left the boy with great convulsions to the point where it looked like the boy was dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up. Soon afterwards, Jesus is taking a little child in his arms and saying:
“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:37)
There is another similar incident in the next chapter of Mark’s gospel. And the disciples are astonished all over again. (They are good at that.) In the ancient world, there was no sentimentality about children. Little children were unproductive. They were mouths to feed while they learned their trade until they were finally able to earn their keep. The idea that children had anything to teach us about God was absurd, if not offensive. Moreover, the notion that we should become like children in order to enter the kingdom of God – as a contrast to the rich young man in Mark 10 – was truly preposterous.
St Nicholas’s Day is a chance to remember and celebrate how the gospel of Jesus Christ has utterly transformed the way that children are treated in society. That is why Christians are defenders of the unborn, especially when that child is deemed to be ‘unwanted’ or ‘unviable’ by a society that still hankers after Molech, the worship of whom devastated the nation of Israel. We have granted the state the right to take away the lives of the unborn and the terminally ill. If we carry on like this, do we really think we will not be devastated?
As we meditate on Christ’s return during Advent, let us look around and see what Jesus will find on his return – and repent.
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Family Christmas Listening
This is the perfect time to mention the most useful thing I do for the Kingdom of God, which is make podcasts for Faith in Kids. The podcast is for a whole family to listen to, maybe in a car on a journey. Our new three-part Christmas series has just dropped. In episode one, there are three Christmas surprises! Plus I relate how I was surprised by some geese. There is also a very surprising story about a girl called Laura and another girl called Laura. Plus a sketch about Mary’s surprise baby shower. Why not have a listen?
