Winter Saints

A Vespers Sermon for the First Week of Advent

Reading:

A reading from the Holy Gospel According to St Luke, for the optional memorial of St Nicholas the Wonderworker.

After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come. And he said to them:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace shall rest upon him; but if not, it shall return to you.

“And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages; do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you; heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Sermon:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I recently read an editorial lamenting the ways in which modern society both celebrates and terminates our Christmas festivities far too early, ignoring both the Advent season and the subsequent Twelve Days. This piece, mind you, had been written by G.K. Chesterton, from London, in 1906.

We have a hard time waiting for Christmas, do we not? And who could blame us? For most children, as indeed for most adults, it is the most joyful, most loving, most wonderful time of the year, the climax of our calendar, a summer of the soul in December. Gifts and music and wonder and family and friends and food! An evergreen erupts in our living-room to bear forth the fruits of light, such that here in the midst of winter, all is merry and bright. And we need that, after the chaos of the last 10 years or so.

Even so—eager as we are, myself included—I wish to offer to all this evening the gifts of the Advent season. More than just pre-Christmas, the Church sets Advent apart as a period of preparation, penance, and patience; a season of silence and of hope. Things get wild at the holidays. We want to fit everything in. We want to give our children and our grandchildren the best of all possible memories. And God bless you for it. But let us not forget that God speaks to us in silence: in prayer, in reading, in worship, in faith.

Listen to the stillness of the snows outside your window. Welcome some of that serenity to dwell in you as well. Advent is an excellent season for sabbath, for sacred time set apart for us to sit in the presence of God. Nature herself holds her breath. Let us remind ourselves that we needn’t do everything every year. If there are traditions and preparations left unfinished by December 25th, fret not. There are indeed 12 Days of Christmas; it isn’t just a song. In the Middle Ages, some people celebrated for 40, right up to Candlemas in February. Now wouldn’t that be something?

For me, Advent is a season of gods and monsters; or, in a more Lutheran vein, a season of sinners and saints. The big one, of course, is Nicholas, bishop, monk, and wonderworker. He has got to be my favorite, the saint who taught me to love the saints. While it isn’t terribly original of me to say that I love Santa Claus, I also think he’s awfully hard to beat. All of the movies, all of the books, all of the modern TV specials pale in comparison to the tales told of St Nicholas’ many miracles, and for whom he performed them.

Nicholas ever intervened for the hungry, for prisoners, for those condemned to die, for sailors on rough seas, for students in their studies, for those enslaved by poverty, and most of all for children. That might sound sentimental to us, yet in classical antiquity it proved downright revolutionary. Today we treat Santa Claus as the embodiment of generosity, and honestly what better legacy could a Christian have? He welcomes us to Advent on his feast day, December 6th.

A week later, we remember Sankta Lucia, St Lucy of Syracuse, renowned for bringing bread to fugitives hiding in the catacombs, and for bearing a ring of candles on her head in order to light the darkness. She’s popular in Scandinavian legend for breaking a naval blockade, thus saving the Swedes from starvation. She remains a very Lutheran saint.

The week after that, upon the winter solstice, the Church remembers St Thomas the Apostle, faithful, brash, and brave, on whose feast day Germanic peoples would often butcher meat to last them through the winter.

Notice the themes associated with each of these servants of Christ: generosity amidst scarcity, light amidst darkness, plenty amidst want: food for the hungry, relief for the oppressed. This is driven home by the fact that each of these saints, in folklore, has a shadow self who accompanies them: Bloody Thomas, Lussi the witch, and the various anti-Santas of European tradition, most prominently seen today in the comeback of the Krampus. When you grow up German, believe me, every holiday has monsters.

My point is simply this: each one of these Advent saints represents a single ray of Jesus’ glory, a unique reflection or aspect of Christ, who is the Light of the world. They prepare His way, just as we are called to do. We too must light the darkness, feed the hungry, liberate the persecuted, and declare with defiance the innate and irrevocable value of every single child of God, as well as the whole of His Creation.

Nicholas, Lucy, and Thomas are what it looks like when we truly live as the Church, when we are Christ for one another. This is how we welcome His Nativity, by reflecting His dawning out into a cold and darkened world, a world in need of Jesus Christ. Thus we prepare ourselves for Christmas, knowing that Christ is with us now, even in our waiting for Him. You are already His saints. You are already His Body. His Spirit dwells within you, as a flame who cannot die.

So be now light for one another, food for one another, love and compassion and liberation for one another. For when we look like Santa Claus, we start to look like Christ.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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