This
week many Americans donned their best green outfit, some attended a parade, and,
no doubt, others chugged pints of green beer in honor of St. Patrick. Yet, I
would wager that most went through these festivities with no real knowledge of
the man’s life. Isn’t it curious how little today’s celebration of St. Patrick’s
Day has to do with the actual Patrick (much like the commercialization of
Christmas). Still, it's worth pondering for a moment why we celebrate St.
Patrick's Day far more than, say, St. Augustine's Day or St. Athanasius's Day,
even though those two men probably had more influence in shaping Christianity
across the world.
Patrick
was born in 373 A.D. along the banks of the Clyde River in what is now
Scotland. He father was a deacon, and his grandfather a priest. When Patrick
was about sixteen, Irish raiders descended on his little town and torched his home.
When one of the pirates spotted him hiding in the bushes, he was seized, hauled
aboard ship, and taken to Ireland as a slave for six long years. It was there
as a shepherd that he was driven to knees and gave His life to the Lord Jesus.
“The
Lord opened my mind to the awareness of my unbelief,” he later wrote in his Confession, “in order that I might
remember my transgressions and turn with my whole heart to the Lord my God.”
Patrick
eventually escaped and returned home to Britain after stowing away on a trading
ship. Once reunited, his overjoyed family begged him to never leave again. But
one night, in a dream reminiscent of Paul’s vision of the Macedonian Men in
Acts 16, Patrick saw an Irishman pleading with him to come and evangelize
Ireland with the Gospel.
It
wasn’t an easy decision, but Patrick, about thirty, returned to his former
captors with only one book, the Latin Bible, in his hand. As he evangelized the
countryside, multitudes came to listen to his strange message of Christ dying
on a cross and then resurrecting from the dead. The superstitious Druids
opposed him and sought to find a way to kill him. But his preaching was powerful,
and Patrick become one of the most fruitful evangelists of all time, planting
about 200 churches, and baptizing 100,000 converts.[1]
It’s
fascinating to me how God used suffering in the life of St. Patrick to bring
about good. David Jeremiah commented on his life by writing these insightful
comments: “Rather than resenting his years as a slave to the Irish, Patrick
used the time as a shepherd to contemplate what it meant to know Christ, what
it meant to know God’s forgiveness. He left Britain as an unconverted teenager
but returned as a believer in Christ. Without those six years of suffering, who
knows how different Patrick’s life might have been. And who knows how many
Irish might never have heard the Gospel through Patrick’s ministry in Ireland
in the fifth century?”[2]
There
is a parallel between the apostle Paul and Patrick. God used their imprisonment
for good. In one of his most joyous prison epistles, Paul wrote about the
benefit of being behind bars, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has
happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become
known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my
imprisonment is for Christ” (Phil. 1:12-13).
Times
of trouble in life, be they brief or extended, require a change in perspective.
Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” we must ask, “What is God
doing in my life? What does He want me to learn in this situation?” God had a
plan and purpose behind St. Patrick’s imprisonment, as He did Paul’s, even
though I’m sure no one, could understand it at the time. As the unknown poet
mused long ago:
My life is but a
weaving between my God and me.
I cannot choose the
colors He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He worketh
sorrow; and I in foolish pride,
forget He sees the
upper and I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is
silent and the shuttles cease to fly,
will God unroll the
canvas and reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are
as needful in the weaver’s skillful hand,
as the threads of
gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.”[3]
[1]
Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings My Soul: 150
of the World's Greatest Hymn Stories (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003),
5.
[2]
David Jeremiah, “Patrick’s Troubles,” Turning
Points, March 2015, p. 39.
[3] R.
Kent Hughes, “Dark Threads the Weaver Needs,” 1001 Great Stories and Quotes (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1998), 406.
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