“SAINT NICHOLAS: A Salvific Slap Against Heresy”
The Saints of Advent—The End of all Things—The Christ Everlasting Text
Advent Vespers Midweek 2: 8 December Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
Do you think if someone wrote a Church history 150 years from now your name would be mentioned? Do you think of lot of your daily, or yearly accomplishments would be cataloged? How about if theologians and pastors researched your historicity, oh, say 16 centuries from now? You would probably not be mentioned or remembered…by men; but, that doesn’t mean you are not in Christ’s Church and that you are not infinitely valuable to Him. Your value is not found in your merit, or your works, but in His love for you—His Grace. The Bishop of Myra, whose Festival date was two days ago, on the 6th, lived, loved, served, sinned, and was redeemed by the Blood of Jesus.
Whether the Church knows hardly anything about Saint Nicholas, or not, is most definitely not the point. Why do you assume “legends” and “legendary” means something did not occur? There is make-believe and invented non-reality, to be sure, and then there are examples of God’s Grace that made an immense impact on the lives of The Saints and thus they are remembered in “legends” even after all the factoids have been erased, destroyed, or forgotten in the ravages of sinful time—“change and decay in all around I see.”
Only a protestant, or a “Crypto-Calvinist” pretending to be Evangelical-Catholic (Lutheran) would be exercised over Augsburg’s honoring of the Saints—be they Biblical, historical, or historical/legendary. As our Symbols confess, by honoring the Saint we are in actuality honoring, worshipping, and giving laud to Christ, for the mercy and forgiveness and guarding in the faith unto death, which He has shown to these faithful men and women.
Saint Nicholas awaits Christ’s return in judgment. The Bishop of Myra awaits for his, and yours, Bishop of his soul to return at the final Advent. We journey through this Adventide 2016 hoping and praying that it is our final remembrance, and that Jesus returns post-haste. We stare boldly, in faith, at death, judgment, heaven and hell.
But you stand on guard not as lifeless automatons, not as distracted or bored bystanders to a past victory won; and certainly, not as lukewarm idolaters or quislings to mammon. No, you must be what you are—Saints, Saints like Saint Nicholas.
Throwing money through windows so that young women would be saved from a life of prostitution. Maybe he did that. We should have no trouble or problem in believing one of God’s Shepherds would so care for his flock. Putting gifts or coins into young children’s shoes? Well, sometimes the truth gets extrapolated or gets moved sideways, slightly ajar—sometimes it gets completely hijacked and bastardized by commerce and secular entertainment.
We do know that Nicholas was at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. wherein he stood shoulder to shoulder with the other faithful Catholic Bishops in repudiating the greatest error ever to infect the Church, an error that is still with us to this day, Arianism. Legend, which your pastor, the Shepherd of Augsburg urges you to believe, as it is meet and right so to do, informs us that when Nicholas came face to face with the arch-heretic, in response to the devil-tongued wolf in sheep clothing’s blatherings, Nicholas simply slapped Arius hard in the face; hopefully with enough force to cause the heretic to see stars. Thus, false teaching needs ever to be repudiated with force and conviction. The Book of Concord’s constant refrain, your confirmation vows, your weekly affirmation of the Church’s Creed—the Creed of Nicaea, is “we believe teach and confess!”
As Adam, perfect man before the fall, was made to be in communion with God, AND to tend the garden, so too the Redeemed Sons of Adam, bought back from slavery to Satan and his Word-killing heresies (such as Arianism) are to be in communion with Jesus at His Hands of Absolution and washing, at His service of His Holy Eucharistic Meal, AND to tend to the Work of discipleship and good works. No true follower of His master believes the synergistic lies of co-operating in ones resurrection from the dead, or co-operating in ones watery birth into Holy Mother Church. You know, and “believe, teach, and confess” that you are saved by Grace alone through faith alone. But you likewise know, along with Saint Nicholas, that your life is one of the cruciform, one of daily battle and combat against the enemy. You fight against Satan, the world’s demonic lures, and most especially against your“old Adam” that seeks to betray you at every turn. You fight as brothers—brothers in Blood. Maybe your blood one day as a Martyr in red, but always as brothers in the Blood of the Lamb. You fight, you daily seek to Love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. You engage in this Christian warfare not to win your salvation not to earn your forgiveness but rather because you are saved by Jesus’ suffering and death on the Tree, because you have been forgiven by His Body given and His Blood shed. You are the forgiven woman, The Church Catholic, at your Groom’s feet, loving much because you have been forgiven much.
You are born for combat—that is the life of a Saint. If they persecuted your Lord, they will persecute you. What of that, what of that? The Kingdom yours remaineth.
The Spirit will ready you, embolden you, and infuse you with The Word. You will fight not with the weapons of this world but with the Word of Christ as the Apostle articulates.
This Adventide as you eagerly wait for Jesus’ coming on the clouds; as you joyfully yearn for the Judgment and the assignment to Heaven of the faithful, you too will be constrained in love to testify Him before all men you come into contact with that they too might be spared from eternal death and the fires of hell. Fight the good fight of salvation for your champion and Captain in the long-fought war has triumphed. He has routed the foe…that you might stand shoulder to shoulder with Saint Nicholas, and, if need be, slap the sin off the face of the heretic.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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