Romans 8. 35, 37 – 39
John 14. 1 – 6
St Margaret’s Sunday
Fr Alex
Today we celebrate our Patron, St Margaret. But what does it mean to have a patron saint for our church family here in Ilkley?
Dedicating churches to saints comes from the time when Christians could start building their own places of worship, rather than hiding away in houses.
They built churches at places associated with a local hero of the faith, perhaps the place of their death or burial. Often their remains were placed under the altar itself.
The saints live on after their death, close to God, and the early Christian communities would dedicate themselves to that particular saint, and ask them to pray for them. In other words, they believed the saint had their back, and would help them through the journey of life.
The most powerful saints after the apostles were those who had given their lives for the faith – martyrs, like our St Margaret.
Christians were often an easy target in the Roman Empire, handy for diverting attention away from the rulers’ problems.
Some of the worst persecutions were after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. The terrible Emperor Nero blamed Christians and their strange religion for the disaster, and Saints Peter and Paul were among many who were crucified or thrown to the lions.
It was a similar story in the early fourth century when our St Margaret was martyred. The Empire was split in two and weakened from invasions, and the two emperors decided a good old-fashioned persecution would appease their gods and turn their fortunes.
The persecution was particularly brutal in the East, where our St Margaret was, in modern-day Turkey.
The story goes that she suffered many torments, but she overcame all of them through her faith. At one point she was swallowed by Satan in the form of a dragon. But it’s said that the cross she was carrying so irritated the dragon’s innards, that he spat her out and ran away.
You can see St Margaret triumphing over a rather sick-looking dragon in our church; in the baptistry, the incarnation window, and in a mosaic near the Lady Chapel.
Eventually she could withstand no more, and was martyred in the year 304: which is only nine years before Constantine the Great ended the persecution of Christians; and only 20 years before he made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. St Margaret was only 15.
We might think of all these persecutions and legends as belonging to the past, remnants of a dark and superstitious time. But in fact we are living in the most dangerous time of all to be a Christian.
It’s estimated that between the death of Christ in AD 33 and the year 1900, there were around 14 million Christian martyrs.
But in just the 20th Century alone, just the last 100 years, it’s believed that as many as 26 million Christians have been killed for their faith – nearly double all the previous 19 centuries put together.
You’d think, in the face of such terrible suffering, people would simply give up. Surely faith isn’t worth all that suffering and death?
Maybe some have; but countless many haven’t. And it’s not because they, or even the saints, are super-human. It’s simply that, like St Margaret in the belly of the dragon, they have held on to the power and the promise of the cross to overcome.
The cross represents the very worst the world can do; the shame, the pain, the disgrace. But with Christ, that symbol of hate and despair, becomes the ultimate symbol of life and hope.
The weakness of Christ in his suffering on the cross – and the weakness of St Margaret, a young insignificant girl on the edges of Empire – that weakness is transformed into the greatest power, to overcome even death itself, to life forever.
The cross is an irritant to those who cling to positions of power and authority, just as it was an irritant to the devil in dragon disguise, because it proclaims that true power comes from weakness; that the history of the whole world turns not on the might of emperors, but on mercy, self-denial, and love.
The cross is the proof of what St Paul said in our first reading, that nothing – not hardship, persecution, peril, sword – not even dragons! – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That love is for all who claim the name of Christian.
Praise God we are unlikely to suffer the persecutions so many of our brothers and sisters have endured, and continue to suffer.
But there will be times when our journey of faith is difficult. In those times, remember St Margaret – give thanks for her faith, and ask for her prayers – that she will look out for you, and have your back on the pilgrimage of life.
And remember the power and the promise of the cross. May you be given strength to take it up and follow Christ gladly, with St Margaret and all the saints. Amen.