Feast of St. Bartholomew—Faithful in Anonymity
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Introduction
We don’t know all that much about St. Bartholomew besides his name. His name shows up in the lists of the twelve Apostles, but other than that, Scripture doesn’t record any of his words or deeds—unless we take the Church’s tradition that Bartholomew and Nathaniel are the same man. If that’s the case, then we at least have Bartholomew aka Nathaniel’s confession made to Jesus: “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49).
The New Testament doesn’t tell us anymore about St. Bartholomew besides this, but we know that he was one of the Apostles that our Lord sent out to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And according to tradition, he did travel the known world, bring the Word of God as far as the Indian subcontinent.
After this, St. Bartholomew spent his final years preaching in Armenia. As he preached in Albanus (modern-day Derbend on the west coast of the Caspian Sea) and was converting the pagans there from their idolatry, Astyages (an Armenian king) was enraged by the conversions and ordered Bartholomew to be put to death for his preaching. This sentence would be carried out by skinning Bartholomew alive and then beheading him.
By worldly standards, St. Bartholomew vanishes into anonymity. No letters. No speeches. No recorded miracles. We have his name in a few Biblical lists and a tradition concerning where he preached and where and how he was murdered. And yet—Jesus Himself called him, appointed him, and sent him as an Apostle to gather in the elect from the four corners of the world into the kingdom of God.
St. Bartholomew is a reminder to us that God builds His kingdom and accomplishes His will not according to human glory but by hidden, often anonymous faithfulness. And it is because of that faithfulness that you and I are even gathered here today, two thousand years later, gathered around the same Word that Bartholomew preached and the same Sacraments that he administered.
The Lord Calls and Knows His Servants
We heard in our Introit this morning the words of Psalm 139: “O LORD, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting.” This is how God speaks concerning those whom He has called: He knows them.
He said the same to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” And when Jeremiah objected that he couldn’t speak because he was only a youth, the Lord answered: “Do not say, ‘I am a youth.’ For you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you” (Jer. 1).
This is the way it is with all those whom the Lord calls to the prophetic and apostolic preaching office, the office of the holy ministry. When Jesus sent out the Twelve, St. Matthew records: “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him” (Matt. 10). Christ called Bartholomew by name and sent him to preach the Gospel of the kingdom.
To be called by Christ is to be known by Christ. He knows their downsitting and their uprising. There isn’t a single part of their life in which He is not governing, protecting, suffering with them, and carrying them. He remembers all that they do, and what is shameful He covers with His blood, so that it is the fruitful works of righteousness that endure.
And Christ still shows this to His Church. In Revelation 1, when St. John sees the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ, He stands in the midst of the golden lampstands representing the churches, holding in His hand the stars which are the angels — the messengers, the preachers — of the churches. And He says: “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
So it is not only with prophets, apostles, and pastors, but with you also. As St. Paul says: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Rom. 8).
He calls His prophets, His apostles, His pastors, and He calls you. He knows you — what you are, what you do, and what you suffer as His dear Christians.
A favorite hymn of mine puts it this way:
He knows how oft a Christian weeps,
And why his tears now fall;
All tears to Him are precious,
And noted by Him all.
Apostles as Fragile Vessels
The Lord willed that the treasure of Himself and all His benefits—forgiveness, life with God, everlasting salvation, eternal peace, and every gift of His good and gracious will—should be given to us through earthen and fragile vessels. He chose to deliver His holy treasure through prophets, apostles, pastors, parents, and countless others who passed down the Word of God through thousands of years of sin, death, strife, false teachers, and every trial.
These servants were sinners themselves. They were fallible and fallen. And yet the Lord entrusted His holy, inspired, infallible, inerrant Word to them, to deliver to those under their care, even down to this very day. We are still benefiting from the labors of those earthen vessels.
And in particular today, we remember St. Bartholomew, an earthen vessel who carried the treasure of Christ as an Apostle in near obscurity. His life and service demonstrate that “the excellence of the power is of God and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7). The Word of God has passed through all those hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck-down saints like Bartholomew. Yet they were not crushed, not in despair, not forsaken, not destroyed.
Anonymous Faithfulness Builds the Church
Our Gospel this morning has Jesus teaching His disciples — and us — what true greatness consists in. True greatness, what God highly esteems, is despised by the world. The world loves pomp, virtue signaling, and viral popularity. Our leaders posture and use their power to lord it over others, punishing those with whom they disagree, while pretending to serve as benefactors.
But Jesus shows that greatness in His kingdom is different. “He who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he who governs as he who serves.” As Christ Himself said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). True greatness is found in humility and service, not in recognition or influence.
St. Bartholomew is an example of this. His name is about all we have, yet we see the fruits of his faithful labor simply by virtue of the fact that we are here today. We must not judge greatness by the world’s standards.
St. Paul says: “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God… Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God” (1 Cor. 4:1–5).
Your works as Christians are the same. It is faithfulness and humility that make for greatness, not recognition, not praise, not influence. The good you do in your household, in your workplace, and in the church may seem hidden, unremarkable, even ridiculed. At times it may even look like failure: “I prayed with my children every day, brought them to Divine Service and Confirmation, and they still left the church.”
The saints like St. Bartholomew could have concluded from their miserable sufferings and deaths that it was all for nothing, that their work came to nothing in the end. But it is the Lord who works through all things for the good of those He calls and knows. He will bring it all to light and reveal what our labors were for in the end. He is the one who gives the increase and grows His Church according to His own will and purposes.
Conclusion
We don’t know Bartholomew’s specific words like we do St. Paul, St. Peter, and the others whose words we have recorded in Holy Scripture. But we know the Word he preached because it is the Word that all the Apostles preached: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). “And if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
St. Bartholomew’s hidden, anonymous faithfulness may be lost when it comes to recorded history, but it wasn’t hidden or anonymous to those saints brought to saving faith in Christ by Bartholomew’s proclamation of the same. And through the faithfulness of St. Bartholomew and his patient endurance amid intense affliction and tribulation—and through the faithfulness of countless saints whose names we will never know—the Gospel has reached us.
Our Lord told St. Bartholomew and the rest of the twelve that they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel because they were the ones who had continued with Him in His trials. This was part of their reward as Apostles and Jesus told them of it before they entered into glory. We do not know everything that lays in store for us from our Lord. But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
Take courage in these truths. It means that your life and labor in Christ are not in vain. No saint’s words and works and bearing of the cross are ever in vain. What may seem like straw to the world will be revealed by our Lord Jesus in the end as gold, silver, and precious stones “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). Then we will have a full recounting of all that St. Bartholomew did that lead to us hearing the saving Gospel today. And we will see clearly what each one of us has done as an earthen, fragile, and imperfect vessel of our Lord Jesus to hand over the treasures of our Lord to our neighbor. And in that Day, you will hear His praise: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” “In due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:9).
Let us pray. Almighty God, heavenly Father, You have blessed Your Church with faithful servants, sending out the holy Apostles to proclaim the good news of Christ. Yet the rivalry and ambition that stirred even among them remind us how corrupt and presumptuous our human nature is, and how easily our hearts are inclined to strife, arrogance, and pride against our neighbor. Govern all servants of Your Church by Your Holy Spirit, that they may serve faithfully, not deterred by greed, arrogance, or the assaults of Satan, nor becoming lax or lazy in their calling, but that Your kingdom may expand and Satan’s be destroyed. Give to us also true humility, fervent love, and faithfulness, that we may lead quiet, peaceful, and honorable lives with all people on earth, while You awaken in us a true yearning for Your eternal kingdom and our lasting homeland. Let us so journey through the vale of tears of this life that we do not forfeit the eternal good You have promised, but obtain it in the end; through Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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