There once was a young man, who as a teenager became an orphan. There was a terrible epidemic raging through the land at the time – something with which we’re now all well acquainted. Both of his parents got sick, and then died within days of each other. 

The young man had lovingly cared for them in what turned out to be their dying days, but, you know with the way these things can go, he didn’t get sick. He survived. But he was alone and heartbroken, and at a tender young age.

Now, his parents were wealthy and he was an only child. So as a teenager he suddenly had a small fortune at his disposal. 

         But that was not all he had inherited from his beloved parents. He had also inherited from them their faith. This young man was an earnest follower of Jesus. And he had an active, prayerful relationship with God. 

         So, day after day, in his heartbreak and loneliness, he prayed to God, cried out to God, for help, with no idea what help could actually look like. 

         The other thing we would do, feeling so bereft and lost, was to walk and walk through the streets of his city, for hours every day, just wandering through the markets and neighborhoods. 

         What he began to see as he wandered in this way day by day was just how many other people he would encounter who were marked by grief and pain and hardship. He also began to see just how destitute so many in his city were. He saw the poverty and the struggle that he had just ignored in his upper-class upbringing. 

He walked every day and he prayed every day. He prayed in the morning. He prayed at night. He’d gather with the other followers of the way of Jesus to hear the stories about Jesus’ life and teachings – blessed are those who mourn; what you do to the least of these you do to me; as God loves me so I have loved you and so you are to love each other; give to all who ask. He would receive the sacrament of bread and wine in remembrance of the one who gave his very self for the sake of all humanity. 

On his walks, it was as if scales fell from his eyes. He began to see deeper into the inner beauty and dignity of the people he would meet and witness in the streets – their beauty through their brokenness, their tenderness and their strength, their vitality and creativity and loving care, the precious sacredness flickering at the center of every soul.

         And in his prayers to God for help, something tremendous shifted within him. He knew what he had to do.

He started to walk at night through the city, rather than during the day. And he’d bring with him bags of gold coins and drop them through the open windows of the people he knew were poor and struggling – including others like him whose families had been decimated by the plague. He knew they would be too proud to ask for help; he knew they would feel ashamed if he gave to them openly. So, he gave in secret. 

         Then one night he brought three bags of gold for a family of a father and three daughters. They had become desperately poor. And the father was arranging to sell the girls into slavery at a house of ill repute. At the time this was so common as to be expected – that in the desperation of destitution, people – girls and women especially – were treated like property for the vicious appetites waiting to pray upon the situation. It is still all too common in our world today. 

         But our young man felt urgently that it should not be this way, that it did not have to be this way, and that he could help prevent any harm from coming to the girls. When he learned about the situation he resolved to give the last of his inheritance to relieve the family of its desperation – one bag of gold for each of the sisters.

         What he didn’t know was that the father was awake that night, deeply troubled in his soul, his conscience refusing to settle with his decision. 

         So, when the first bag of gold hit the floor beneath the window, the father quickly roused. And by the second and third, he had run outside to see what was going on. He caught our young man in the act. 

         “Nicholas!” he cried, “What are you doing?!” Then he put it together. 

“So, it’s you who’s been giving away bags of gold at night!”

         Nicholas begged the man not to tell anyone, just as Jesus had told the people he healed not to tell anyone. And we know how well that went. 

         Despite Nicholas’ efforts to keep his generosity a secret, the word got out.  This is the SaintNicholas we’re talking about. He lived between the 3rd and 4th centuries in what is now Turkey. This is the Saint Nicholas who would come to represent the spirit of Christmas for countless generations in countless cultures: the open, extravagant generosity we share to celebrate the open, extravagant generosity of God embodied in the Christ-child whose birth we honor this night. 

         Our long-standing practice of giving gifts to family and friends is one expression of this spirit of Christmas. This is good. 

         Our long-standing practice of giving to charitable efforts and causes during this season is another expression of this spirit of Christmas. At our church this month we helped out numerous families who are struggling with poverty, and we helped out many folks who are without a home. This too is good – very good. 

But when we take a closer look at the example of Saint Nicholas, we can see something even deeper in what this spirit of Christmas can mean for us. 

The open, generous heart of Saint Nicholas was a gift that came not out of reciprocity and not out of charity, but out of a sacred solidarity that came through his bringing his heartbreak to God. 

When Nicholas allowed himself to unwrap his heartbreak, he found within it a precious gift that he could share with others. 

When he prayed to God from that heartbreak, when he learned from Jesus from that heartbreak, when he received the sacrament from that heartbreak – the bread broken and given – when he moved through the world and encountered others from that heartbreak, God opened his heart to the humanity of others. God opened his heart to his essential equality with others. God opened his heart to the abundance that was his inheritance. God opened his heart to the greater horizons of possibility when the gifts of that abundance are shared. 

From such a heart, unwrapped and broken open, flowed a tremendous and joyous generosity, a live-giving and liberating gift and keeps on giving. 

This is a heart fully joined with the heart of Christ. 

We cannot underestimate just how radical this was and still is: a heart that moves through heartbreak into a realization of the essential sacredness of everyone, a heart broken open to the flow of an extravagant abundance from our Holy Creator to all according to our need. 

This is not the way it usually goes with heartbreak. Where’s the bitterness? Where’s the resentment? Where’s the fearful clutching of what we have that remains? Where’s the distain for others in their misery and misfortune? 

This is also not the way it usually goes with what people expect about God. 

God has blessed the mighty with their might; God has cursed the lowly with their lowliness … right?! God has ordained some to be worthy and others to be unworthy, some to be human and others to be slaves … right?! What kind of God inspires this lunatic squandering of one’s inheritance on hand-outs to those whose miserable misfortune proves their unworthiness?!

We cannot underestimate just how astonishing this is. 

The Hebrew Prophets were the first to reveal that the One God of the Universe does not play by the rules that we humans would like to justify our mistreatment and neglect of others. 

And then comes Jesus! He turned everything upside down. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. What you do to the least of these you do to me. He lived and taught and embodied the astonishing truth that within each and every soul is the precious image of God. And this God is Love.

Then to believe, to dare to believe, to dare to come and see, that in the very person of Jesus, in his very flesh and blood, we find God, in all of God’s majesty and mystery, joined with us in our human condition … what an astonishing gift! When we unwrap the heart of Christ we find that the Infinite is Intimate, with us in all the vulnerability and vitality of a baby born in a manger, with all the fierce love of an unwed mother, with all the courageous tenderness of an adoptive father. We find a God who joins with the heartbreak of a parent who loses a child, who joins with the heartbreak of a child who loses a parent. We find a God who joins us in our wedding feasts and in our rapturous reveries, a God who enjoys our joy … and who suffers our cruelty. We find a God who joins with us as we are to give us the gift – the new life, life eternal in ever abundant love – that is ours to share when we unwrap our hearts and allow them to open to the love our Holy Creator pours out upon us and all creation. 

Tonight, we can say “Yes” to this gift. We can unwrap our hearts, even in their heartbreak, to become open to this gift that is our inheritance to receive and share with everyone. 

Thanks be to God. 

         Merry Christmas. 

Delivered Christmas Eve 2022, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge

For the record, my detailed novelistic account of the inner life of young St. Nicholas takes artistic license based on the tales about him that have been passed down.

Image by Bicci di Lorenzo