Living the Life of St. Patrick

"For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.”—2 Corinthians 4:5 (NKJV)

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, a day set aside to remember St. Patrick, who was born in the late 4th century to a Deacon and his wife near what is now Glasgow, Scotland, and died, in the late 4th or early 5th century in what is now Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. It is also estimated that he died on March 17, thus the reason we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th. He was known as the “apostle to the Irish” or as one of the first Christian missionaries to Ireland. We don’t know much about his early life, but we do know, according to his Confessio (now known as The Confession of St. Patrick), that he was living in Scotland when he was captured by some Irish marauders at the age of 16 and sold into slavery in Ireland, where he served as a shepherd. He spent 6 years as a slave and heard a voice from God telling him to board a ship bound for his homeland. He escaped and traveled 200 miles to a ship that took him back to his homeland where after a few years he felt God calling him back to Ireland to share the Gospel. He was trained as a priest and then appointed a bishop. He returned to Ireland, traveling back and forth to numerous villages, baptizing thousands and appointing priests in various places. He is remembered as the patron saint of Ireland and the first apostle that helped turn the Irish from paganism to Christianity.

Patrick’s life serves as a similar example as the apostle Paul. Paul considered himself a “bondservant of Christ.” The word translated “bondservant” is really doulos, and most Bible translations don’t draw out the true meaning of the word very well. It actually means “slave.” Paul recognized that he was Christ’s slave, purchased by Christ’s blood, and ready to do what God desired him to do. Patrick was similar. He had been a slave in Ireland and left to obtain his freedom, only to return as a slave to Christ and help free the Irish from the slavery of their sin.

While most of us have never been slaves in a foreign land, we do know the bondage of sin. We have attempted to free ourselves from sin’s ominous foreboding grip numerous times and failed miserably, reminded of the chains of sin that clang upon our souls. But Christ has come to set us free! As Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” And again in John 8:32, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Jesus is the truth of God and it’s He who will set us free. Or as it says in John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Christ set me free from my sin and He can set you free as well! It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done; Jesus can and will set every single person free who comes to Him in repentance and faith, ready to surrender their life to Him. There is no sin too great, no situation too dire, and no past that can’t be forgiven. He will set you free and then He will take and use you to reach many people with the Good News of Jesus Christ, just as He did with St. Patrick. Patrick was freed from his physical slavery only to become a fully devoted bondservant of Jesus Christ, ready and wiling to return to the very people who held him in slavery in order that they may be won to Jesus Christ. Are we willing to let Christ set us free? And then, once He has, will we speak to others so that they too may be freed? St. Patrick’s Day is a day to remember God’s love, His grace, and His mission to save sinners. He saved me and He can save you as well. Call out to Him in repentance and faith, ask Him to save you, and He will. He will transform you and then commission you for a task whereby you will be used by Him to bring others to the wonderful saving knowledge of who He is. May we surrender to the Master of the Universe and then be transformed so others might share in the overflowing joy of God and His Gospel. Amen.