St. Nicholas, Part 1

December 6 was St. Nicholas Day.  Do you know much about St. Nicholas?  I don't.  My assumption is that he is one of the inspirations for Santa Claus.  The devotional book I'm reading during Advent, "Lighten the Darkness" by Dena Douglas Hobbs, talked about St. Nicholas on December 6.

He is known for his generosity.  The most famous story about him is that he supplied dowry money for three daughters in a family where there was no money for dowries. Without dowries, the women couldn't get married, and would have no real life.  Depending on the story you read, Nicholas threw money over a fence, or down the chimney, or even into the girls' stockings so that they could start their lives.  Light, in darkness, supplied through generosity.

Light - that's why people put oranges in stockings.  They represented balls of light.

Anyway, think of Nicholas giving money to this family.  He redeemed the daughters from what would have been lives of poverty or prostitution, for in that society, that would have been all that would be open to them.  Through his generosity, he gave gifts of grace that let them live a redeemed life.  Christ does the same for us.