An Article from Pastor Paul Boutan
This is the time of the year we will hear on radios and Christmas playlists everywhere songs like, “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Santa Baby” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Well as a believer in Christ you may be interested to know that the LEGEND of Santa is based on a real person, we would know as “Saint Nick.”
Saint Nicholas lived in the early fourth century in what is now Turkey. Orphaned as a young boy, he received a substantial inheritance from his deceased parents. As a believer in Jesus he entered the ministry and became the Bishop of Myra in Turkey. He sometimes was called the “Wonderworker,” as he was well known for his generosity to children and to the poor. There are stories of Nicholas dressing in a disguise and leaving bags of gold on the window sills of the poor and needy. One legend tells of a desperately poor father who had three daughters with no dowry to ensure they get married. The father actually had plans of selling his own daughters into prostitution in order to provide some means of financial support for the family. Nicholas heard of this tragic story and secretly, under the cover of darkness, brought bags of gold to the man's home on three separate occasions preventing his daughters from being sold into prostitution and giving them sufficient means to get married. This act prompted the Catholic Church to grant him Sainthood and he became known as the patron saint of virgins.
Nicholas of Myra (Saint Nick) was a generous man who loved and cared for the poor and needy and those who were orphaned like he once was. But his love and generosity were rooted in his love for Jesus.
Perhaps this Christmas the “Real Saint Nick” can serve as our “Patron Saint” of generosity, our reminder to that as Jesus freely gave to us, we can freely give to those in need as well. The Apostle Paul sums up the “Christmas Spirit” for us in Acts 20:35; “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.”