Saint Patrick

Genesis 22: 15-18

Romans 1: 16

John 14: 15-21

Saint  Patrick

Saturday, March 17 is Saint Patrick’s Day. When you think of Saint Patrick’s Day, what comes to your mind?  Shamrocks? Dancing the Jig? Dublin, Ohio? Green Beer? Wild parties in Athens Ohio?  Missionaries?

I suspect few people on that Saturday will be thinking of missionaries in association with Saint Patrick’s Day. Yet, the reason we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day is because he was a missionary who risked his life to spread the Gospel in a hostile country.

There are two documents by Patrick which are recognized by all parties as being genuine: his "Confession" or "Epistle to the Irish" and his epistle to the Christians under the cruel king, Coroticus. Then too, we should mention the Hymn of Patrick, originally written in Latin and known as The Breastplate. These authentic writings in an irrefutable way support our convictions concerning the Apostle to the Irish.

Patrick, in his own "Confession" tells us that he was a Briton, not an Irishman. He first saw the light of day in the town of Dumbarton on the River Clyde in the south of Scotland about the year 389 A.D. His father was a Christian deacon and his grandfather a clergyman in the ancient church of Britain.

At fourteen years of age, he was captured by a band of Scottish slave-dealing pirates who sold him to the Druid chieftain, Milcho, who reigned in the north of Ireland. For six years Patrick herded the cattle of this ruthless pagan chieftain. In his "Confession" he tells us: "When I was a youth, I was taken captive before I knew what I should desire or seek, or what I ought to shun."

It was during this time of servitude in the bleak forests of northern Ireland that Patrick turned from his frivolous ways and came into a knowledge of Christ as his own personal Saviour. Of that period he says, "Frequently in the night I prayed and the love of God and His fear increased more and more in me." Possibly it was while a hidden onlooker of the weird Druid ceremonies that he was inspired of God to become a missionary to these heathen people.

At that time druid priests, deep into black magic and the occult, held the island's inhabitants in a lockgrip. Patrick challenged this demonic stronghold and won, but the victory was neither quick nor cheap. He was imprisoned for months at a time, his only respite from the stress of constant travel and hardship. Yet one after another, tiny kingdoms would finally allow Patrick to declare the good news of Jesus within their borders. He baptized tens of thousands. Hundreds of chapels were erected for the worship of Jesus all over Ireland.

In his writings, Patrick  relates how, after six years, he managed to escape from his master and, after a tortuous journey over sea and land, returned to his people in Britain. It must have been a beautiful homecoming as his mother embraced him once again and his father, in amazement, learned of the lad's experiences. They had long before given him up as dead.

Like the great apostle Paul, he received a clear and personal "Macedonian call" from the Lord of harvest to preach the Gospel in the land of his former captivity. Patrick described his call in these words: "Again, I was in Britain with my parents, who received me as their son, and besought me to promise that, after the many afflictions I had endured, I would never leave them again. And then, truly, in the bosom of the night I saw a man as if coming from Ireland, whose name was Victoricus, with numerous letters, one of which he gave me, and I read the beginning of the epistle, containing the Voice of the Irish. And while I was reading the beginning of the epistle I thought in my mind that I heard the voice of those who were near the wood Focluti, which is near the western sea. And they shouted thus: 'We beseech thee, holy youth, to come and live amongst us.' And I was greatly pained in my heart, and could not read very much more; and thus I was proved. Thank God, that after many years the Lord performed to them according to their entreaty."

At forty years of age, the amazing Patrick began his magnificent work on the Emerald Isle. His mission field was wild and primitive. The people who inhabited its primeval forests were animists and they worshiped such things as trees and stones and wells. They believed that spirits dwelt in these idols and they sacrificed their little children on heathen alters to appease the gods and to secure, so they thought, better harvests.

About a year after his arrival in Ireland, Patrick did something that called much attention to his ministry. The Encyclopedia Brittanica tells us that he challenged the "royal authority by lighting the Paschal fire on the hill of Slane on the night of Easter Eve. It chanced to be the occasion of a pagan festival at Tara, during which no fire might be kindled until the royal fire had been lit."

Patrick challenged all the forces of hell. Not a little flame did he kindle, but a bonfire! All the people were transfixed and King Loigaire was amazed at his daring and said: "If we do not extinguish this flame it will sweep over all Ireland."  And it did.

When the flames of the great conflagration on Tara's hill, ignited by Patrick, illumined the countryside, the king was curious to see what kind of mortal this Patrick could be, and he sent for him. He and his assistant missionaries marched boldly into the presence of the monarch and told him that Christ was the light of the world and preached Jesus crucified and risen from the dead with such persuasive eloquence that the king was born again by the Spirit of the living God.

After the king believed, Patrick won and baptized multiplied thousands of converts and ere his thirty-three years of ministry were finished, all Ireland was evangelized. Innumerable churches dotted its hills and valleys and from their ranks sent forth zealous missionaries to proclaim the message of redemption with incomparable passion to the pagan tribes of Scotland, England, Germany and what is now France.

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By the time of his death, on March 17, all of the British Isles and much of Europe were largely Christian. Though himself not well educated, he was a proponent of education. Under his influence, the monastery became the basic unit of the church in Ireland. Patrick was also an advocate of the importance of cross-cultural evangelism. It was largely through the influence of Irish monks that Christianity was spread to the British Isles and the northern parts of Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries. It can be argued that if it were not for Patrick we might not have Christianity in this country today, as our country was first and largely settled by people of English, Scottish, Irish and European immigrants.

There are two points to all this. First, we need to understand and work to take back the celebrations of Christianity that have been given over to secularism so much so that most people have no idea why we celebrate those days. Halloween, Saint Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter… it is amazing how few people really understand what these days originally represented.

Secondly, after his ordeal as a slave in Ireland, he certainly had lots of reasons not to decide to follow God let alone go back to Ireland. He could have been bitter, or as an adult he could have lived in comfort the rest of his life on his family’s wealth. Instead, he risked his life for the sake of Christ’s message. One person, answering the call of God, changed the lives of thousands of people, long after his death.

How many of us spread the gospel, by the way we live as well as by our words, when we live in safety and security? How many of us by living our faith are changing the life of one person who needs to know the love of God in their life?  This is worth thinking about this Saturday, March 17, as well as all through Lent.

Amen