Saint Nick, Saint Who???
Saint Nick (or Nicholas) was a bishop in modern Turkey and guess what he is the model or the parody of today’s most famous Christmas character, Father Christmas. Yes that big fat jolly guy is a take off from a Catholic priest/ bishop.
I read an interesting article from Crosswalk about Saint Nick and the need of him in today’s world. It raised an interesting question. Who and what is this Saint Nick guy. I like most of you probably already knew that he was the inspiration of Father Christmas and maybe even knew that Coca Cola was credited as the people to dress him as he is today but why? Well it was a good question and I was bored at the time so began my little journey of Saint Nick.
Apart from the first link I provided, I looked at two more websites. Of course the great wikipedia and also a website totally devoted to him which had a general overview about Saint Nicholas and other stuff like the origins of Santa Claus.
Saint Nick is usually called the saint or protector of children and justice and has many stories of protecting children, women, sailors and travelers.
The first story or fact of his life is the fact that he inherited a great amount of money from his parents and he gave it away to the less fortunate people so they could enjoy life without the burdens of poverty etc. He used this gift of generosity to reach to people and pastored many to Christ and was a help to the society (sounds very similar as what I mentioned how we should reach todays society).
One of his acts is now folklore for Christmas and that is the stockings filled with goodies. This tradition came from Saint Nick throwing gold into a poor mans house so he did not have to sell his daughters into prostitution and as the legend goes the money was placed or thrown in stockings hanging on the fire place to be dried.
In researching and finding out all of this two things come to mind.
- Jesus and Christianity is a part of our life whether you like it or not.
- A Maybe we should be like Saint Nick who stands for giving to the poor, protecting and providing help to those in need rather than the commercialized figure that society makes the season of Jesus’ birthday.
Next I will ask the question. Is Xmas really bad?
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