What Christmas Has Done to the World

By Reverend Stephen Crotts

The town is Myra in present day Turkey.

The year? Around 320 or so A.D.

The area’s leading religious figure is a bishop named Nicholas. Roman emperor Diocletian is a fit of persecution had exiled and imprisoned the pastor. But now Emperor Constantine has come to the throne, embraced Christ, and freed Christians. So there is joy in the little village of Myra in Asia Minor. Nicolas is home.

To meet Bishop Nicholas was to immediately like him. He wore a bright red bishop’s coat with a tall miter hat. He was especially fond of children and relished gift-giving.

A man in his parish once fell into bankruptcy. His creditors demanded payment. The man was going to sell his three daughters into slavery to raise the funds. Bishop Nicholas, hearing of it, tossed a bag of gold through the man’s window that night. The next morning, much to everyone’s surprise and joy, the money was found to keep the family together.

Nicholas wasn’t just a minister with a soul for children and gift giving. He also had a heart for theology. When the famed Council of Nicea met in 325, Nicholas was there to help canonize the Bible and write the Nicene Creed.

And lest you come to believe Nicholas, as a generous child-loving theologian, could do no wrong, it is said that he once so violently disagreed with another pastor that he punched him in the jaw and subsequently spent the night in jail on assault charges!

Nicholas died much beloved in the year 342. Devotion to his memory was widespread, especially in Eastern Orthodox Church circles. In 1087, a group of Italian businessmen removed his probable remains from Myra to Bari, Italy, where he is today enshrined in the Church of San Nicola.

Saint Nicholas soon became the patron saint of Greece, Russia, and Sicily, and that of numerous cities in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Holland. Many merchants, bakers, bankers, seamen, and children began to make him the hero of their faith, their patron saint.

When the Protestant Reformation came along, much was done to lessen the popularity of Saint Nicholas. In some nations it was actually illegal to mention his name. So a more secular figure took his place.

In England he was known as Father Christmas; in France, Papa Noel. Holland, however, proved to be the place where Christians refused to give up his memory. There Saint Nicholas was pronounced Sinter Klaas, or Santa Claus.

The first Dutch ships to sail to America had the figure of St. Nicholas carved on their prows as the patron saint of commerce, of generosity, of good will. Even the first church built in New York City was named after him.

When the Dutch lost control of New York to the British in the 17th century, St. Nicholas traditions gradually became secularized and his image merged with that of Father Christmas.

The whole idea of a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer with a North Pole residence has come from New York. There Clement Moore in 1822 wrote a poem for his children. It’s title? “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The Santa Claus we know today in pictures was first drawn during the Civil War. The year was 1863. The artist was Thomas Nast. And his magazine was Harper’s Weekly. He portrayed Santa as a fat, rosy-cheeked man dressed in red and sporting a long white beard. Nearby was a stack of toys.

And so we have our Santa Claus who comes at Christmas, giving gifts in the night.

Many Christians this time of year are given to Santa-bashing. The nativity of Christ seems to be eclipsed by the visit of Old St. Nick. The celebration becomes a “sale-a-bration” of over indulgence.

And I know how it is.

And I am concerned.

But let’s not overreact.

For ours is not the moan, “Look at what the world has come to!” but “Look Who has come to the world!”

This time of year the world has done much to secularize Christmas. But Christmas has done more to redeem the world.

The life and example of Bishop Nicholas is proof. For the world didn’t give us St. Nicholas. Jesus did. And, indeed, he is one of the cloud of witnesses that Paul talks about in Hebrews 12, who have run the great race of faith before us. And by looking to Jesus and drawing inspiration from people like Nicholas, we can live our lives a little more generously.

Reverend Stephen M. Crotts will be performing the dramatic monologue “Saint Nicholas Speaks!” Sunday, December 1, at 11:00 a.m. at Village Presbyterian Church in Charlotte Court House, Va. All are invited to this free event.