2— St. Nicholas: Amazing Kid & Teen
The Birth of St. Nicholas: A Recreation
St. Nick’s true story is even better than the legend!
What This Book Is About: This book uncovers the true story of St. Nick — St. Nicholas, the real man behind the legend of Santa Claus. By blending 3rd-century history with the life of young Nicholas, the narrative is uniquely presented through the eyes of a modern teen. It’s perfect for parents ready to share the “truth” about Santa and for anyone curious about the man who inspired the legend, his true deep connection to Christmas, and the roots of early Christian faith.
The Day St. Nicholas Was Born (A Recreation)
A long time ago in the Roman Empire…
The wind howled. From behind the thick door, The Merchant Theophany could hear the grinding of wood upon wood as ships — his ships — were breaking up in Patara’s harbor. At the moment, he didn’t care about his many ships. All he cared about was his wife, Joanna, and the child she was struggling to bring into the world.
“Agh!” she screamed and Theophany jumped.
How much more could she take?
He leaned his head against the door, and curled his stiff, deformed fingers into the closest they could come to a fist. Last year, when Theophany had refused to renounce Christ, all his fingers had been ordered broken by the Roman proconsul — a man Theophany had thought was his friend.
Softly, helplessly, as Joanna’s terrible, heart-wrenching moans nearly overwhelmed him with grief, Theophany did something he hadn’t done since he and Joanna had been thrown into prison. He bowed his head. And he prayed.
“Lord,” he hesitantly began, “please…help Joanna deliver this baby. And please…let them both live. Please Lord…I beg of You…” Theophany sensed when his brother, Nicholas, the head clergy in their city, came and stood beside him.
“Wait,” David stopped reading. “The baby being born is Nicholas — St. Nick…Santa Claus? Right?”
“Right.”
“But this man’s name,” he moved the cursor to highlight it, “is Nicholas, too.”
“He’s the baby’s uncle.”
“Oh… So, St. Nicholas was named for his uncle.” David twisted his head in question. “That’s kind of unusual isn’t it? Greeks normally name their kids after grandparents.”
“True. But you’ll see in Chapter Five, when Baby Nicholas is baptized, that the way in which he was given his name was quite extraordinary.”
David scrolled back up to the content. He settled it over Chapter Five’s title, “Receiving His Name,” and nodded. Being Greek, the concept of a child being officially named at baptism was perfectly normal to him. Even in Greece today, that’s when children were named. David started reading again.
Theophany was glad to have his much older brother, Nicholas, with him. He needed his sibling’s faith.
But when Nicholas started speaking words from the Holy Scripture, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” red-hot anger welled up inside Theophany. He swiveled to his brother and shot out, “How can I forgive the unreasonable edict from the emperor I trusted and Phineas…the man who turned us in?” Theophany was a Christian, but a Roman too. He had liked being a good citizen of the empire.
He looked down at his severely crippled fingers. Both his government and his colleague, the Merchant Phineas, had turned against him. Even worse, they had abandoned Joanna — the most caring woman in the world — to a terrible fate. “If Joanna hadn’t spent those months in prison she wouldn’t have contacted the fever. She wouldn’t be so weak now.”
“Agh…” Joanna screamed again and both brothers flinched.
Nicholas looked toward the door and asked Theophany, “How can…you not…forgive?” and turning away, a violent cough racked his body.
Theophany reached for him and gently patted his brother’s slender back while motioning to a housemaid to fetch a glass of water. The chill his brother had caught while trekking down from his mountain retreat concerned Theophany. It had settled hard in his much older brother’s chest.
As soon as the fit subsided, Nicholas took a sip of water and continued, “Don’t you remember brother…?” he asked in a raspy voice, “‘if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you…’”
Theophany’s lips narrowed. There it was again. Forgiveness.
It was something he’d been having a hard time with. Especially today. Fear, as if a gladiator’s thick arm was around his chest, gripped him.
“It’s what Joanna,” his brother whispered and motioned toward the door and the ominous silence that now lay behind it, “desires of you.”
“Did she tell you that?” Theophany couldn’t help shooting back. He’d thought he’d hidden his ever-present anger from Joanna.
The older man nodded and in little more than a whisper, so he wouldn’t start coughing again replied, “When…I arrived back here. It was the first thing she told me.”
When the Emperor Decius’ edict against Christians had been proclaimed the previous year, Bishop Nicholas — against his own desire, but at the pleas of Theophany and the congregation of believers in their city — had withdrawn to his hidden valley. Located deep within the interior of the high Lycian mountains, it was a place he called Holy Sion. But neither the threat of the edict, nor the onslaught of the fierce winter storm, could keep Nicholas away from the birth of Theophany and Joanna’s long-awaited child.
“What exactly did Joanna tell you?” Theophany asked.
“That her fever is one of the body; yours is of the spirit.” He continued hoarsely. “She told me that she…wants her husband — who always lived up to his named and ‘revealed God’ — back,” he paused to clear his throat. “She wants that…as much as the child…she is fighting to bring into the world.”
Theophany felt his shoulders sag under the weight of the resentment and the unforgiveness he carried. It was like donning a sopping-wet woolen cloak that never dried, constantly dragging him down and souring his mood towards God and everyone else. But holding onto anger towards God did indeed feel like a betrayal of his closest Friend, someone he missed dearly. “Anger is consuming me,” he quietly confessed and a feeling of relief wash over him as he finally acknowledging the burden he bore.
“Theophany, you and Joanna,” Nicholas paused to flick his tongue over his chapped lips. “You are alive! God did answer your prayers. You lived through the emperor’s persecution. You and Joanna…you still have a role to fulfill on this earth of ours.”
Theophany looked again at the door that separated him from the remarkable woman he loved more than life itself. “The babe,” he stated.
“Quite possibly,” Nicholas said.
Theophany acknowledged the truth in his brother’s words. Reflecting on the incredible events surrounding this child, a faint smile graced his lips. “It’s because of him that we’re still here,” he affirmed, a sentiment he had carried for a long time.
“When many aren’t,” Nicholas agreed and then spoke to him as Theophany knew he would to any member of his congregation. Theophany was glad. He needed his pastor right now even more than he needed his brother. “‘If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.’’’
Theophany closed his eyes, letting the soothing words of Holy Scripture wash over him, gradually easing away the anger that had weighed on him. It felt akin to the gentle embrace of the Mediterranean Sea in summer, cleansing both body and soul with its comforting waves. He sighed, a great big sound of release that emanated from deep within his spirit being.
Finally — because life was terrible without God and it was easier to do so than not to — he chose to follow the words of the Lord, and the advice of his brother, and to forgive the men that had caused his family such heartache. “Lord, as you have forgiven me, I forgive the Romans.” He sighed. “I even forgive my colleague and former friend, Phineas.” It was as simple — and as difficult — as that to at last be free again. Just one moment, one thought to exchange the heavy cloak of anger for the light shawl of God’s love and to forgive, as God forgave him.
Slowly, with each moment of freedom, hope tenderly crept into the space once dominated by fury and dark despair. As he gazed at his brother, a smile spread across his face, embracing not just him but also the other members of his large household, each wearing a joyful expression at his spiritual return to them.
He then turned to the door that separated him from Joanna.
To his surprise, it opened.
The obstetric assistant emerged.
“Has she delivered?” The hope of men everywhere and throughout time as they awaited the birth of their child was in his question.
The young woman held up her hands in a negative gesture. “No, Master. But the most remarkable thing happened. Suddenly, the mistress’s extreme pain departed. It just stopped.” Her eyes sparkled in the way of one who had witnessed a miracle. “She said that she understands why and she wishes to speak with you.”
Theophany’s gaze found his brother’s. The older man shrugged his thin shoulders as if to say, “It’s a God-thing,” Theophany nodded in grateful agreement before following the young woman into his wife’s chamber.
He was surprised to see that Joanna was still on the hard bed that the obstetrician had brought. All those hours of pain, and she still hadn’t been transferred to the birthing stool. He looked toward the physician.
Sending a shadow of a smile his way, the doctor motioned for him to go to Joanna.
Theophany saw immediately that although exhausted, Joanna’s eyes — that seemed to hold the turquoise of the Mediterranean Sea in their depth — smiled up at him.
“You forgave, didn’t you?” she asked in that direct way that had first attracted him to her so many years ago. Joanna was never coy or shy. Behind her beautiful, small exterior Theophany had been surprised to find a woman of much strength and quick intelligence. He had noticed her the first time she had looked at him; fallen in love the first time she had spoken. She had been the joy of his life for these last many years.
With infinite love, he reached out and moved the tendrils of hair that clung to her damp forehead. “How did you know?”
“When the pain stopped, I knew.”
He reached for the baby rattle and cloth animal — a dog with the happiest face imaginable painted upon it — which she had made for their child and placed them beside her right hand. “You will see this child safely delivered, and then you will see him grow into a fine young man,” Theophany declared. He believed it.
“But,” her tongue moved over her lips. It was a lethargic gesture showing the depth of her weariness. “I’m so weak.”
She’d been a quarter her normal size when released from the Roman dungeon. Her black hair had turned a silvery gray. But her eyes hadn’t lost their sparkle. Her soul, her spirit, hadn’t been touched by the tortures of prison.
Unlike his.
“Dear One,” Theophany used his special endearment for her and reaching for the sponge on the nearby table, he gently wet her parched lips. “With God, all things are possible. You have not only Him to lean on with your spirit but me to lean on with your body. And soon, you will have a child to love, to mother, and one who will be a great blessing to us all.”
Her lips curved slightly at their corners, and she answered so softly that Theophany had to bring his ear next to her mouth in order to hear. “It’s wonderful…to have my husband…of faith back.” Her fingers fluttered like feathers over his hand. “I will trust…your words…my love.”
He nodded. Theophany wanted to stay with her, to hold her, to help her. But when the child started to press upon her again the physician gently pushed him out of the way. Theophany retreated behind the door where the members of his household joined him in prayer in upholding the woman they all loved.
Less than half an hour later, when a healthy son was born to the Merchant Theophany and his wife, naturally the storm outside did not dare to blow any longer.
Joanna and her son — the infant who was destined to grow strong and wise and become the great Christian teacher and pastor, Nicholas of Myra — slept peacefully side by side.
“Cool!” David said when he finished reading. “Is that what really happened?”
“From all accounts we have concerning his birth, it pretty much is.”
“Okay. So, when exactly was Nicholas born?” He scrolled up to the subtitle of the chapter. “‘A long time ago…’ doesn’t really do it for me, Mrs. Melanie.”
“Read on and you shall see!”
A Note from the Author
This vivid portrayal offers a glimpse into the privileged birth of children from wealthy families during the third century after Christ. However, it’s important to note that such advantages were inaccessible to the poor. Moreover, regardless of economic status, the mortality rates for newborns and mothers remained alarmingly high until the late twentieth century.
And imagine, just a little over two centuries earlier the Virgin Mary gave birth to the Lord of all in a stable. Of course, the Virgin Mary was a teenager and Baby Nicholas’ mother was not only a much older woman but had suffered grievously while in the Roman dungeon. Why did she suffer? Because she faithfully believed that Mary’s Baby, born in a stable surrounded by the earth He fashioned and the innocent animals He loved, is the Messiah. This great faith is something Joanna was soon to pass on to her beautiful baby boy, Nicholas.
Key to font styles:
Normal font: Used when David cuts into the story to ask me questions or to make revision.
Italics bold: Recreations of third century events
Normal bold: Straight narrative with historical information
You’re such a talented writer