It's Santa's Day!

Today we remember Santa, the man himself and in doing so we can celebrate the man for whom the season of Christmas is all about - Jesus - on Christmas day without feeling we've done the Coca Cola clad geezer with the red beard any injustice at all.

Watching the Christmas films where Santa being locked up, threatened with a mental hospital and rendered, sans sled and reindeer brings us to a projected reality where we learn, "Christmas just can't happen without Santa!"

Actually, we celebrate a few feasts at this time of the year:

For the Jewish among us it's Hanukkah,

For the Pagans there's Saturnalia,

The Christians all celebrate Christmas,

And EVERYONE (or so it seems) celebrates Argostide.

Now the Jewish feast is the festival of lights - an story of the dedication of the (second) Jerusalem Temple and the miraculous continuation of light when the oil should have run out. Saturnalia was a Roman festival (even though my pagan mates tell me it was running long before people were writing stuff  - but I don't know where they read that!) and it was about agriculture and giving of gifts and the like. It sort of made sense for the Christians to latch onto it to celebrate the birth of Jesus because the actual date wasn't known so whatever date they chose would have been an arbitrary one - so it's December 25th what gets the prize.

The Saturnalia bit is all too often bills as a feast that pagan romans chose but the more I have read into this the more it turns out that it has the fingerprints of people what are the result of a collision between pantheistist and polytheistic types and their God Saturn (Gk Cronus) the bloke what had the seasons and Agriculture especially in his hands.

So there we are - the Christians didn't actually hijack Saturnalia, they merely decided to celebrate one of their 'special days' on a day when it made sense - after all the public transport stopped, it was about times and seasons, the giving of gifts and that sort of thing - a ready made holiday time waiting to be used.

Now Nick was a bishop and the legend, as I understand it, is that there was a man with three daughters. He was so poor that he could not afford to provided a dowry for his girls and without the money  they would remain unmarried and therefore destitute when he died: This meant they would either become slaves, prostitutes or die from starvation. The story continues that Nicholas, hearing of their plight tossed a bag of gold through the window where the girl were sleeping and this fell into, or onto, the shoes or stockings which were drying before the fire. Now some say once, some say three times, this happened - but the idea of a gift and fireplaces and stockings was set and that's what we have today. Some say the gold was in the shape of three golden globes and that's where Oranges come in as a Christmas stocking filler.

Aside for that Bishop Nicholas was a great leader, a wise bishop and an amazing example to all of us - take some time to look him up, you won't be disappointed!

BUT

Father Christmas - the modern St Nick is never going to be the reason for the season - Christmas, is for Nick what Saturnalia is for Christians - merely a convenient vehicle for the remembrance - and we need to remember who and what Christmas is all about, after all:

Santa never died for you - did he?

So let's let St Nicholas have his day today and then let us progress through Advent towards Christmas and the celebration of Jesus, the Christ, and the greatest gift the world has ever seen (no batteries required).

Daily Office - Dec 6

Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326

Psalm 42
As the deer longs for the water brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, even for the living God;
when shall I come before the presence of God?
My tears have been my bread day and night, while all day long they say to me, ‘
Where is now your God?’
Now when I think on these things, I pour out my soul:
how I went with the multitude and led the procession to the house of God, with the voice of praise and thanksgiving, among those who kept holy day.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?

O put your trust in God;
for I will yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
My soul is heavy within me;
therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan, and from Hermon and the hill of Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the thunder of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and waves have gone over me.
The Lord will grant his loving-kindness in the daytime;
through the night his song will be with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me, and why go I so heavily, while the enemy oppresses me?’
As they crush my bones, my enemies mock me;
while all day long they say to me, ‘Where is now your God?’
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? and why are you so disquieted within me?

O put your trust in God;
for I will yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 43
Give judgement for me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people;
deliver me from the deceitful and the wicked.
For you are the God of my refuge;
why have you cast me from you, and why go I so heavily, while the enemy oppresses me?
O send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me,
and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling,
that I may go to the altar of God,
to the God of my joy and gladness;
and on the lyre I will give thanks to you, O God my God.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?

O put your trust in God;
for I will yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

Isaiah 44:1-8
But now hear, O Jacob my servant,
Israel whom I have chosen!
Thus says the Lord who made you,
who formed you in the womb and will help you:
Do not fear, O Jacob my servant,
Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my spirit upon your descendants,
and my blessing on your offspring.
They shall spring up like a green tamarisk,
like willows by flowing streams.
This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’,
another will be called by the name of Jacob,
yet another will write on the hand, ‘The Lord’s’,
and adopt the name of Israel.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Who is like me? Let them proclaim it,
let them declare and set it forth before me.
Who has announced from of old the things to come?
Let them tell us what is yet to be.
Do not fear, or be afraid;
have I not told you from of old and declared it?
You are my witnesses!
Is there any god besides me?
There is no other rock; I know not one.

Revelation 21:9-21
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth cornelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

The Collect Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.