The many faces of St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas Day is celebrated on the Church calendar on December 6.  All kinds of traditions and practices are associated with St. Nicholas, from Clement C Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas, from which we get some of our modern Santa Claus imagery and Christmas morning traditions to sipping hot chocolate and practicing the Germanic tradition of putting coins in shoes.  And there’s always Europe’s Krampus and Schmutzli to beware of!  A favorite, of course, is watching sentimental Christmas specials: Scrooge’s redemption in his declaration that “I will live in the past, present and future.  The spirits of all three shall strive within me.  I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” and the Grinch, too, when he finally realized that perhaps Christmas doesn’t come from a store, but may mean a little bit more; and then the true meaning of Christmas shown through and his heart grew three sizes, times two.  Y’know, I love these stories, but I’m not sure how the true meaning of Christmas can come through without mentioning the birth of the infant Messiah, Jesus.  It’s like The Nicholas Center’s (https://www.stnicholascenter.org/) claim that St. Nicholas needs to be “rescued” from Santa Claus or Charlie Brown loudly lamenting from the darkened stage: “Isn’t there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?!” and Linus saving the day by retelling the birth narrative from Luke’s gospel.

 
What many people seem not to know is that St. Nicholas was a real person.  From The Episcopal Church’s Lesser Feasts and Fasts we learn that Nicholas of Myra was a bishop in the early to mid-fourth century and that “very little is known about the life of Nicholas, except that he suffered torture and imprisonment during the persecution under the Emperor Diocletian.  It is probable that he was one of the bishops attending the Council of Nicaea in 325 (from which is derived our Nicene Creed).  According to popular tradition, he famously lost his temper at the council and punched the heretic Arius, but this story dates to more than 1,000 years after his death and is almost certainly apocryphal.  He was honored as a saint in Constantinople in the sixth century by the Emperor Justinian.  His veneration also became immensely popular in the West after the supposed removal of his body to Bari, Italy, in the late eleventh century.  In England, almost 400 churches were dedicated to him.  Nicholas is famed as the traditional patron of seafarers and sailors, and, more especially, of children.  Many of the accounts of Nicholas’ life recount his habit of secret gift-giving to those in need, a tradition that many Christians have felt inspired to continue in his honor.  As a bearer of gifts to children, his name was brought to America by the Dutch colonists in New York, from whom he is popularly known as Santa Claus.”
 
Whether actual history or fanciful traditions, we are grateful for the life, work, and ministry of Nicholas of Myra, for from him we have the example of self-giving as God gave of God’s self in the through the incarnation in Jesus: a Savior born, which is good news of great joy for all people.  And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

-- Marc Vance