March 14, 2010
by Pastor Jeremiah
St. Patricks day is coming! Seriously, aren't you excited? I've never really celebrated St. Patrick's day before. I can't really say I'm a big fan of green beer, shamrock decorations, or bag pipes and leprechauns freak me out! So, St. Patrick's day has never had much appeal to me in the past. However, this year my wife signed my daughters up for highland dance lessons and guess what? We're partying Irish style!
The other day, while the girls were breaking out into high-steppin' dance, I was listening to some Irish folk music and thinking about St. Patrick. It's amazing how certain holidays catch on and ride the wave of commercialism. Unfortunately for St. Patrick, his day just happens to be right up there with Fat Tuesday and New Years Eve for the most alcohol consumption. It's amazing how we can turn a day that is reserved for revering a great man of God into an excuse to consume obscene amounts of alcohol. I wonder what St. Patty would think? A few thoughts on him...
- Did you know that St. Patrick isn't even a Saint (at least not with a capital “S”)? He has never been officially canonized by Rome because of his unorthodox practices and because his followers didn't follow protocol.
- St. Patrick wasn't even Irish. He was actually born in what is now Dumbarton, Scotland.
- St. Patrick is said to have driven all of the snakes from Ireland (most likely there weren't any on the island in the first place).
While we may have some misconceptions about him, in reality, St. Patrick was a pretty incredible guy. He was born in 390AD to a Christian family in what was then Roman-Britain. His father was a deacon in the church and he had a good deal of knowledge about the Christian faith, though he never had a genuine relationship with God. That all changed when he was kidnapped at the age of 16 by raiding pirates who sold him into slavery in what was then radically pagan Ireland. For the next six years of his life he spent his days tending his masters sheep on the hills of Ireland.
It was there, far from home, in isolation, that he reached out to God. He began to pray. Some sources say he prayed some 100 prayers a day and 100 more by night. In a dream, he sensed God was telling him to flee from his master to a ship that would be waiting for him to return him home. He fled, walking a distance of over 200 miles on foot and was able to secure passage on a ship bound for home.
It was another dream that would bring him back to Ireland again. He recounts the vision that he had a few years after returning home.
“I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us”
Sensing that God was calling him as a missionary to the very people who had enslaved him, Patrick decided to enroll himself in seminary and prepare for the work that was ahead of him. It was not going to be an easy task. The Celts weren't described as barbarians for no reason. They were violent, lawless, perverted pagans separated into upwards of 160 warring clans. Patrick's predecessor Palladius had labored for years with very little success of converting them and the Roman church had all but given up on these God-forsaken pagans from Ireland.
Patrick was in his mid-forties when he returned to Ireland. His strategy was simple, yet brilliant. His former master, Milchu, was a chieftain and so, armed with insider information on how the clan system worked, Patrick set out to convert the chieftains to Christ first. In a stroke of genius, Patrick contextualized the message of the gospel in order to help these pagan people receive God's truth. He is said to have used the three-leaf shamrock as a teaching aid to explain to them the great mystery of the Trinity. It is estimated that over forty clans were converted, hundreds of churches were established and thousands of leaders were equipped to preserve the gospel for generations to come. Ireland became known as one of the Christian centers of Europe.
So, while I'm watching my girls perform their highland dance in honor of St. Patricks day on Wednesday, I'll be asking the pagan sitting next to me what the three leaves of the Shamrock represent. The true spirit of St. Patrick lives on!
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