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The Bishop's Journal
December 2000
IN DEFENCE OF ST. NICK
Although we know very little about Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra, there is
no disputing the fact that he has become one of the most popular saints of the
Christian calendar.
Certainly, he is the most imitated! For countless centuries, in Christian
countries around the world, people have dressed up with white beards and
variations of red garb to play at being St. Nicholas or Santa Claus for a
group of delighted children. Indeed, every parent or grandparent who puts a
gift under a tree is, in part, imitating a man who is remembered for no other
reason than the fact that he knew what it is to love!
Of the many legends concerning Nicholas, most detail his many acts of
generosity and mercy. This was a man committed to the Scriptural mandate to
love our neighbour. It's a task more easily spoken of than done. It's easy to
talk of loving but much more difficult to do it. Loving is more an act of the
will than of the heart. It involves making hard choices, making commitment. It
means choosing to function and act with no motivation other than the desire to
benefit another. It means choosing to put ourselves and our own desires and
needs in second, or third or even fourth place. But how to do that?
The Scriptures call us to be imitators of Christ, to quite literally pretend
that you are Jesus. We are invited to participate in a faithful act of
pretence! I like that idea! For although there are dishonest kinds of
pretending where we pretend to be something that we have no intention of truly
becoming, there is also, I think, a good kind of pretence where the act of
pretence can lead us to the real thing.
When you're not feeling particularly friendly, for instance, but know you
ought to, very often the best thing you can do is to put on a friendly manner
and behave as if you were a much nicer person than you feel you actually are!
And, lo and behold, in a few moments you will in fact be feeling friendlier
than you originally were. Pretence becomes reality.
In the same way, as we pretend to be more Christ-like, as we put on the face
of Christ, we grow into the fullness of his grace and love. What begins as
pretence, becomes a reality.
To use Scriptural terms, we are talking about being born again, about putting
on Christ, about Christ being formed in us. But regardless of the terminology,
the reality of what occurs is the same. As we seek to be more Christ-like, the
true Christ honours our faithful act of pretence, our childlike playacting, by
turning it into a reality.
So what does all that have to do with St. Nick? As the reigning symbol of the
modern, secular holiday season, poor old Santa is the king of pretence! He has
become a symbol of the elements in our modern, consumer-driven Christmas that
are offensive to us and, as such, he gets more than his fair share of bad
press from frustrated church people at this time of the year.
But you know, not all of it's deserved. Sure Christmas is overly hyped and
overly commercialized. Sure there are things we would rather do with a little
less of and others we would want to see given a higher profile. But at the
same time, as flawed and imperfect as our annual imitations of old Nicholas
might be, on one level they represent a striving for something good and
something right. It's not the real thing by a longshot, but it is informed by
the real thing and can still point toward the real thing. And that, in my
mind, is something to be thankful for.
So this year, as you dodge through the mall, quietly cursing the muzak
Christmas carols and the too-early "holiday" decorations, see if you
can't squeeze out a smile and a prayer for St. Nick. You might find that he's
more of a friend than you realized!
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
