Don’t you love it when VH1 runs those shows about flashes in the pan from the 80s and 90s?   They call them “One Hit Wonders”—pop artists who had just one really big song in them but then dropped off the radar.  VH1 always forgets, though, the biggest one-hit wonders of all time.  It was a two-man team by the name of Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber.  Two hundred years ago they wrote the lyrics and melody for “Silent Night,” a song that has been translated into 44 languages and will be sung as long as there is a Christmas.

But Christmastime brings around another great one-hit wonder each year, Saint Nicholas of Myra in Lycia.  Compared to other saints, dear old Saint Nicholas might seem like a NO-hit wonder.  He wasn’t a martyr like Saint Stephen.  He wasn’t a learned theologian like Saint Gregory.  He doesn’t have a reputation as a great preacher like Saint John Chrysostom.  He wasn’t a champion faster like Saint Anthony.  (In fact, the original Santa Claus probably was a rather rotund man.)

So why do we love Saint Nicholas so much?  Why did he, of all the saints, morph into this larger-than-life figure we now know as Santa Claus?  Why does he have so many namesakes? ( Doesn’t that scene from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” ring so true, when the father introduces the whole family and every other cousin is a Nick or a Nikki?)  Why is it that nearly ten percent of the parishes in our Archdiocese are named after Saint Nicholas?

The answer, I believe, it that the life of Saint Nicholas radiates such a simple fatherly love.  He was generous.  He was gentle.  He was genuine.  You don’t get the sense from the stories of his life that he ever pretended to be something he was not.  He was a simple man of strong faith and action.

Sometimes this simplicity got him into trouble.  I called him a “one-hit” wonder, and here’s why.  In the great meeting of church leaders in AD 325 that we call the First Ecumenical Council, Saint Nicholas was there.   The Council was called to consider the teachings of a man named Arius, who had some unusual teachings about Jesus Christ.  Nicholas got so upset with Arius that in the middle the meeting he went over and slapped him in the face.  Saint Nicholas was jailed for the assault and battery, but released from jail by Emperor Constantine, who recognized that Christ was on Nicholas’ side after all.

The thing that comes through most clearly from the stories about Saint Nicholas is that he offered love with no strings attached.  Well-known is the story of how Saint Nicholas gave a poor man three sacks of gold so he could marry off his daughters honorably.  Saint Nicholas gave the money from his own wealth, not from the church’s treasury.  He tossed the bags through an open window so that his gifts would be anonymous. He gave without expecting the money to be repaid or used in a particular way, and he gave without expecting thanks or a good name for himself.   It was an act of love with no conditions, no demands.  There wasn’t a string tied to the neck of the sack so that Saint Nicholas could pull it back if he didn’t like the way the gift was received.

We like to think of ourselves as loving people, all of us.  But the truth of the matter is, most of the time our relationships have a healthy dose of self-interest in them.  We love other people, but we get something in return, whether it be our friends, our spouses, even our children.  It might be companionship, it might be affection, it might be respect, it might be a sense of pride.  Even when we give to charitable causes, we answer a need, to be sure; but we also get the benefit of feeling better about ourselves.  (Indeed, that feeling of superiority is the premise of every public broadcasting fund drive—just listen to those pitches on NPR!)  But would we give if it weren’t for that little perk?  If we examine our heart closely enough, we see that there’s almost always a string attached to our love.

But the highest love is a love with no strings attached.  That’s why it’s so important for Christians to love their enemies.  Not out of the hope that our love will change someone’s heart and bring them to a dramatic conversion.  But because when you show love to someone who hates you, you experience pure love, the truest, most Godlike love—a love that expects nothing in return.  Even if you manage this just once in your lifetime, the experience will change you forever.  In the world of true love, one-hit wonders are rock stars forever!

Let us love with no strings attached.  This is why Christ commands us, when we throw a party, not to invite our friends or relatives or rich neighbors, but to invite the poor, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:13).  Why?  Because they cannot return the invitation like the others can.  No strings could even possibly be attached!  When you lend money, says Christ (Luke 6:35), give it away not expecting to be repaid.  Doing so, you become more and more like your Father who is in heaven.  For He spreads His blessings on those who hate him and those who love Him equally, and He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

When you give money, says Christ (Matthew 6:3), don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.  No strings attached—not even the string of recognition and reputation.  The truest Christian giving is anonymous giving. Don’t even try to get the tiniest bit of ego boost from your charity, not even from yourself, says the Lord.

This month as we celebrate Saint Nicholas, we celebrate more than a person.  We celebrate love: the purest, highest kind of love that Saint Nicholas personifies.  It is the kind of love that we hope to receive ourselves, and the kind of love that God calls us to give.   Christ showed us the way, Saint Nicholas followed that path, and we all honor him best by finding within ourselves the true love that we were created to express and to experience.  Through the love and the prayers of our father among the Saints, Nicholas of Myra, may God work the wonder of true love in our hearts today and forever.  Amen.

Merry Christmas!! Kala Christougenna to all!!