The Feast of Saint Nicholas
from The Winter
Pascha,
by Father Thomas Hopko
Following the Feast of Saint Andrew the First-Called, pre-feast hymns of the Nativity are heard once again on the
feast of Saint Nicholas, the fourth-century bishop of Myra in Lycia, who through the ages has come to be especially connected
with the festival of Christ’s Birth.
O you who love the festivals,
Come gather and sing the praises of the fair beauty of bishops,
The glory of the fathers,
The fountain of wonders
and great protector of the faithful.
Let us all say: “Rejoice, O guardian of the people of Myra,
Their head and honorable counsellor,
The pillar of the Church
which cannot be shaken.
Rejoice, O light full of brightness
That makes the ends of the world shine with wonders.
Rejoice, O divine delight of the afflicted,
The fervent advocate
of those who suffer from injustice.
And now, O all-blessed
Nicholas,
Never cease praying to Christ God
For those who honor the festival of your memory
With faith and love.”
Make ready, O cave, for the Mother-Lamb comes
Bearing Christ in her womb.
Receive him, O manger, who by a word released the dwellers of earth
From all lawlessness.
You shepherds abiding
in the fields,
Bear witness to the awesome wonder.
You wise men from Persia,
Offer the King your gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
For the Lord has appeared from the Virgin Mother,
And she, bending over
him as his handmaid,
Worshiped him as he lay in her arms, saying:
“How were you sown in me as a seed?
How have you grown in me?
My Redeemer and my God!”
O unwedded Virgin, from where have you come?
Who has given you birth?
Who
is your mother?
How can you carry your Creator in your arms?
How is your womb free from corruption?
O Most Holy One,
We see great and awesome mysteries upon earth
fulfilled in you.
We adorn the cave as a house worthy of you.
We ask the heavens to send us a star.
For behold, the wise men proceed from East to West,
Desiring
to see the salvation of mortal men
Shining in your arms
like a pillar of fire.
- [Vespers
Hymns for the Feast of Saint Nicholas]
Sad as it is to see Saint Nicholas transformed
into the red-suited Santa Claus of the secular winter “holidays,” it is easy to understand why the holy bishop
has become so closely connected with the festival of Christ’s birth. The
stories about the saint fabricated and embroidered in Christian imagination over the ages, in various times and places, all
tell of the simple faith and love of the man known only for his goodness
and love.
The extraordinary thing about the image of Saint Nicholas in the Church is that he is not known for anything extra-ordinary. He was not a theologian and never wrote a word, yet he is famous in the memory
of believers as a zealot for orthodoxy, allegedly accosting the heretic Arius at the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea for
denying the divinity of God’s Son. He was not an ascetic and did no
outstanding feats of fasting and vigils, yet he is praised for his possession of the “fruit of the Holy Spirit….love,
joy, peace, justice, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” [Gal 5.22-23].
He was not a mystic in our present meaning of the term, but he lived daliy with the Lord and was godly in all of his
words and deeds. He was not a prophet in the technical sense yet he proclaimed
the Word of God, exposes the sins of the wicked, defended the rights of the oppressed and afflicted, and battled against every
form of injustice with supernatural compassion and mercy In a word, he was
a good pastor, father, and bishop to his flock, known especially for his love and care for the poor.
Most simply put, he was a divinely good person.
We use that term “goodness” so lightly
in our time. How easily we say of someone, “He is a good man”
or “She is a good woman.” How lightly we say, “They are
good people.” A teenage girl takes an overdose of drugs, and the neighbors
tell the reporters, “But she was always such a good girl, and her parents are nice people!”
A young man commits some terrible crime, and the same rhetoric follows: “But
he was always such a good boy, and his family is so nice.” A man dies on the golf course after a life distinguished
by many years of profit-taking and martini-drinking, and the reaction
is the same: “He was a good man, yeah, a real nice guy.” What do “good” and “nice” really mean in such cases? What do they describe? What
do they express?
In Saint Luke’s gospel, it tells us that one day a “ruler” came up to Jesus and asked, “Good
Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answered
him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone”
[Luke 18.18]. In Saint Matthew’s version it says that Jesus answered
by saying, “Why do you ask me about what is good?
One there is who is good” [Mt 19.17]. However we choose to
interpret Christ’s words, at least one point is clear. Jesus reacts
to the facile, perhaps even sarcastic, use of the term “good” by referring to its proper source.
There is only One who is good, and that is God himself. If
you want to speak of goodness, then you must realize what - and Whom –
you are talking about!
Like God, and like Jesus, Saint Nicholas was genuinely good, Real
goodness is possible. For, to quote the Lord again, “with men this
is impossible, but with God all things are possible” [Mt. 19.26]. A
human being, even a rich human being who believes in God, can be genuinely good with God’s own goodness.
“For truly I say to you,” says the Lord, “if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed…. nothing
will be impossible to you” [Mt 17.20-21].
The Messiah has come so that human beings can live lives which are, strictly
speaking, humanly impossible. He has come so that people can really be good. One of the greatest and most
beloved examples among believers that this is true is the holy bishop of Myra, about whom almost nothing else is known, or
needs to be known, except that he was good. For this reason alone, he remans,
even in his secularized form, the very spirit of Christmas.
