Christmas Every Day

1945

The death of Eric Liddell

Eric Liddell (1902-45) was a Scottish athlete and missionary who won fame at the 1924 Olympics and who would be immortalized in the film Chariots of Fire.

Liddell was born in China to missionary parents and lived in that country until he was 5 when he was sent back to Britain to go to school. At his public school and the University of Edinburgh he excelled as an athlete and played international rugby for Scotland. Selected for the British track team for the Paris Olympics of 1924, he decided that he could not participate in 100 metre sprint in which he was a favourite because the heats were run on the Sabbath Day. Instead he competed in the 200 and 400 metre races. Before the latter, a distance at which he had never done particularly well, a member of the American team’s support staff slipped him a note with a quotation from I Samuel 2:30: “Those who honor me I will honor.” Liddell drew the difficult outside lane which meant that for the first part of the race he was unable to see the pace of his competition so he set off at a blistering pace and managed to hang on for the gold medal. The time he set was an Olympic and world record. In the same Games he won a bronze in the 200 metres. These medals came despite an awkward running style that was much mocked.

In 1925 he left for the mission field of China and served as a teacher and ordained minister there until his death, returning to Britain for furlough only rarely. He married the daughter of a Canadian missionary and their family produced three daughters. The invasion of China by Japan forced the missionaries to either flee and abandon their flocks or to move them to areas of greater safety. Liddell sent his wife and children to Canada but remained in China. When his mission was overrun by the Japanese, he was interned in a prison camp. His life there seems also to have been one of exemplary sacrifice and service. Liddell refused to be freed in a prisoner exchange and gave his place to a pregnant woman. He died there in 1945 of a brain tumour.

1547

The coronation of England’s first Protestant king

Edward VI (1537-53) was the son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. Though his father had withdrawn the English Church from obedience to Rome, it was still entirely Catholic in liturgy and theology. Edward, however, was raised among Protestant sympathizers and teachers and during his short reign the nation adopted Protestant church policies.

When his father died in 1547, Edward succeeded to the throne ahead of his older half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Those at court who leaned toward religious reform now became instantly bolder. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached a sermon at Edward’s coronation calling the new king a second “Josiah” (a young king of Judah in the 7th century B.C. who attacked idols) and called for him to ensure the “the tyranny of the Bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed”.

During Edward’s reign, all which was spent under the guidance of regents, clerical celibacy and the mass were abolished, a Protestant Book of Common  Prayer was ordained and the last elements of monasticism were eradicated. Continental reformers were sought as preachers and university teachers. Catholic incumbents who resisted these changes were removed and in some cases imprisoned. In the process, ecclesiastical lands were seized by well-connected courtiers and the English church structure was much weakened.

Edward’s religious reforms seemed doomed when he died at age 15 to be succeeded by his Catholic half-sister Mary whose persecution of Protestantism won her the name “Bloody Mary” but she too died after a brief reign and without issue. The church instituted under Elizabeth I who reigned from 1558 was built on the Edwardian mode.

842 The Restoration of Icons

For almost a century, the Eastern Christian world was split over the proper use of images in worship. The Ten Commandments expressly forbade the creation of “graven images” and Judaism developed as an aniconic faith, eschewing the visual representation of God as a form of idolatry.

Christians, however much they rejected the worship of idols, felt it was necessary to portray the Godhead inasmuch as Christ had come to earth in human form. To reject depicting him was to fall prey to the Docetic heresy, which claimed that Jesus had only appeared to be human and to reject the goodness of the created world. Thus Christianity developed a rich visual art tradition. This tradition was particularly strong in the East where icons of Jesus and the saints were treated with intense devotion.

When Christian forces suffered losses in the Middle East at the hands of Muslim invaders, many military officers from the border areas began to believe that the Islamic refusal to depict God was a reason for their success; Christianity had fallen into idolatry and was being punished. When one of these generals, Leo III, became emperor he began a period of iconoclasm, a policy followed by his successor Constantine V. Images were destroyed, defaced or painted over, causing popular outrage and clashes with the monasteries which were devotees of images. Ironically, the greatest intellectual supporter of icons was John of Damascus who lived in Muslim-occupied Syria.

For a short time at the end of the century under Empress Irene, icons were restored but the army continued to oppose them. When she was overthrown, iconoclasm was resumed. It was not until February 19, 842, that were icons restored to the churches largely at the instigation of the Empress Theodora. The first Sunday of Lent is still observed as the “Feast of Orthodoxy” in Eastern churches.

The iconoclastic spirit was strong in 16th and 17th century Protestantism which carried out much regrettable destruction of religious art. The current brouhaha over the depiction of the Muslim prophet Mohammed shows the issue is still very much alive.

The icon above is of Christ Pantocrator (Almighty), from the 6th century in the St Catherine monastery, Mount Sinai.

The Shipwreck of Paul

On this day is commemorated the shipwreck on Malta suffered by Paul on his way to Rome. The New International Version of Acts 27 reads:

27 On the fourteenth night we were still being driven across the Adriatic Sea, when about midnight the sailors sensed they were approaching land. 28 They took soundings and found that the water was a hundred and twenty feet deep. A short time later they took soundings again and found it was ninety feet deep. 29 Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight. 30 In an attempt to escape from the ship, the sailors let the lifeboat down into the sea, pretending they were going to lower some anchors from the bow. 31 Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.” 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it drift away.

33 Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. 34 Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.” 35 After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. 36 They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. 37 Altogether there were 276 of us on board. 38 When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea.

39 When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. 40 Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea and at the same time untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and made for the beach. 41 But the ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf.

42 The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. 43 But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. 44 The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.

The stamp pictured below was issued by Malta on the 1,900th anniversary of the wreck. Today tourists can visit Saint Paul’s Bay on Malta. This article discusses the historical accuracy of the claim: http://www.parsagard.com/shipwreck.htm

Saint Sigfrid’s Day

(But let us not forget Saints Winaman, Unaman and Sunaman who are also commemorated on this day.)

Evangelizing the pagans of northern Europe was a tough job and, for centuries, the reward for the efforts of Christian priests and monks was death. Many a mission was slaughtered at the water’s edge or after the first sermon denouncing pagan idols. Even some conversions of Nordic kings came to naught when their successors decided that maybe the good old gods were best after all.

Finally, early in the eleventh century, an English monk from the Benedictine Abbey at Glastonbury named Sigfrid succeeded in converting Olof, the King of Sweden, who would be the first Swedish ruler to remain faithful to Christianity until his death. Joining their uncle Sigfrid on the mission front were his nephews Winaman, Unaman and Sunaman who had the misfortune of preaching to obdurate pagans who murdered them and threw their heads in a nearby lake. Sigrid recovered the heads (see above) and these relics were venerated in Sweden until the Protestant Reformation.

Sigfrid won admiration when he refused to allow the murderers to be executed and remitted the blood fine. He died c. 1045, revered as The Second Apostle of the North. (St Ansgar, 801-865, was the First.)

February 14 is, of course, St Valentine’s Day, but the saint commemorated on February 13 is too good to overlook, so, a day late, I give you:

St Dyfnog’s Day

Be not abashed if you are as yet unaware of St Dyfnog, a Welsh saint of surpassing obscurity. He was a priest of the sixth century who served as confessor to a prominent family. Saxon invaders had pressed the native Romano-Britons back into the remoter areas of the island where they maintained their Christianity in the face of the pagan onslaught.

St Dyfnog, Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch in Denbighshire, Wales is built on a site which has been occupied by a church since the 500s when it was founded by its name saint in close proximity to a well with healing powers. Today the well and the church with its magnificent Jesse Window dating from the 16th century are tourist attractions. A Jesse Window is a stained glass creation which depicts the family tree of Jesus.

Follow this link http://stdyfnog.org.uk and then on the Jesse Tree link. This will take you to an image of the window, an explanation of its history and a nifty little feature that allows you to click on it and see which ancestor pops up. Enjoy.