St. Patrick's Day - an international holiday of drinking in green. In the states, we watch Boondock Saints I & II and eat potatoes with irony. The Irish pull out all the stops, and everyone joins in for the heck of it.
But St. Patrick was a real man with an amazing story. He was actually British, and sold as a slave in Ireland around the as a teenager. For six years, he worked as a slave herding sheep. A time came when he was able to escape and he fled back to Britain. The neat thing is that, as a man, he then went back to Ireland! He felt a calling on his life, a tug of the Spirit, to return and share the gospel with the very nation that enslaved him as a boy. And the Lord showed him favor in the sight of the kings, allowing him to traverse the countryside without hindrance; and the Lord protected him from the Druids who wished him dead on multiple occasions. He freely traveled from town to town, telling the people about Christ and the hope of salvation in Him.
What a heart it takes, and what obedience to God, to return with love to a place of such pain. He makes it clear in his famous prayer that it was not of his own strength and will that he did this. It was only by the forgiving power of God that he was able to do anything at all. It was by the Lord's grace and strength that he escaped Ireland, and the same what led him back.
Let us not forget today our calling, and from where we receive the grace to accomplish it.
"Today I arise, through the baptism of Christ—His cross; and His grave; resurrection; ascension; and final descent, for the judgment of doom."
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