Half a century ago, an adventurous youth was brutally attacked by the brakeman on a freight train. He realized that the trainman was attempting to kill him and, despite a sudden realization that he was stronger than the brakeman and a consuming rage to retaliate, he jumped off the train at the first opportunity to do so. He made his way to a hobo jungle where a tough-looking man asked, "Who slugged you, kid?" They talked until the man fell asleep. Someone whispered in the youth’s ear, "Careful, fella ... That guy’s got a gun. He’s dangerous." But he ignored the advice, traveled with the older man for awhile, shared food, and, temporarily, became friends. The older hobo became his protector and advisor, telling him bits of wisdom that served him well.

In his autobiography with the intriguing sub-title, The Excavation of a Life (Title: All the Strange Hours), the late Loren Eiseley relates that story and reveals that he never saw the man again; in fact, he never learned his name. But he never forgot him, although he guessed that the man either died in a flophouse in Chicago or in a violent gun battle. Eiseley wrote: "Years later when the bodies of men like him lay on dissecting tables before me, I steeled myself to look at their faces. I never found him. I am glad that I never did, but if I had, I would have reclaimed him for burial. I owed him that much for some intangible reason. He did not kill the illusions of youth ... But he left all my life henceforth free of mobs and movements ... I owed him that.

Saints’ days serve to jog the memory of the Church by reminding God’s people of the dedicated witness and service of specific persons who have responded in the past to the call of Christ to proclaim the gospel and live out their lives in the faith. Some saints stir up more vivid memories than others; Matthias, for example, is only the name of the replacement among the apostles for Judas. Little is known about him, his life, or his ministry. His name occurs but this one time in Scripture, then he disappears from the holy writings and records of the early Christian church. Matthias had been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry until his ascension. He had been passed over by Christ when the Twelve were selected, but the Eleven chose him to replace Judas after his defection and death. The Bible says nothing more about Matthias after this - "and he was enrolled with the eleven apostles."

Tradition has it that Matthias was sent to Ethiopia as a "witness to the resurrection" of Jesus Christ. And tradition insisted that his witness ultimately took the shape of martyrdom; he is supposed to have laid down his life as testimony to the truth of the Gospel. Tradition also declares that the Empress Helena, on her journey to Jerusalem in the fourth century, learned of, and located, the body of a man reputed to be Matthias and had it removed to Rome. The bones of Matthias were finally buried beneath the main altar of Saint Mary Major Church, one of the seven pilgrimage churches in the Eternal City where contemporary pilgrims may still gain indulgences. That’s about all that is known about Matthias; he has no other history, no further marks of identity, except that the body buried in St. Mary Major Church is headless (his head is buried in Trier), as well as faceless. What more is there to remember?

Before nothing

behind nothing

but, we might add,

remember him the zero.

Any excavation of the life of Matthias beyond biblical text and what might be either reliable or unreliable tradition would result in unprofitable speculation bordering, perhaps, on idolatry and/or superstition.

The significance of the story that Luke tells about Matthias is simply that a man who had not played a very important part in the ministry of Jesus was chosen to move out of anonymity and become a trusted apostle of Jesus Christ. That makes him more than a zero, doesn’t it? How careful they must have been in casting those lots for Judas’ successor; his perfidy had led to Christ’s crucifixion and death. They had all been burned once and they didn’t want to be burned again. They could trust Matthias - and that makes him worthy of remembrance and thanksgiving. Tradition would have cast him out of the history of the Church and obliterated any references to his name if he had been unfaithful in his ministry. He is not remembered as a zero but as Matthias, appointed by the eleven disciples after Jesus’ ascension, to the apostolate as it originally existed. And that makes him - even if he is almost anonymous - a person to be remembered by Christians of all ages.

The Apostles Were Witnesses to the Resurrection

At the Peace Sabbath, Riverside Church, New York, on April 13, 1980, Tazu Shibama delivered a message which he simply entitled "A Very Sad Story." He began: "My name is Tazu Shibama from Hiroshima. I come here to tell you my story ..." He told how he began learning English when he was twelve years old in a Methodist Church-supported mission school. A missionary, Miss Gaines, encouraged him to become a teacher and arranged for him to go to the George Peabody School for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee. That was in 1930.

Tazu returned to the Hiroshima Girls’ High School, where Miss Gaines was, and was teaching there in August, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. He said: "I will tell you what happened on that day. At 8:15 the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, but there was no warning, so we did not know what really happened because the bomb exploded but did not give any sound to us. Of course there was a big sound of explosion, but the sound was too big that our ears could not catch. My father was out of Hiroshima city. He said he and people over there heard a big bang but all the people in Hiroshima city did not hear any sound at all. We only saw a sort of yellowish flash and the next moment everybody was crushed underneath the broken houses." He explained, "All the Japanese houses were blown up and fell on us in small pieces and covered us up."

Tazu believed that he was dying but had enough strength and presence of mind to send his family, all of whom were relatively unhurt, into the country. A next-door neighbor pulled him out of the wreckage of his home; he saved Tazu from certain death, but had been helpless to prevent the deaths of his wife and two daughters. He made his way to the streets and saw that thousands of homes were flattened: "Many people were walking in miserable condition ... Some people of course were killed immediately. Some of them who were strong enough to walk ... were walking in the

streets in thousands but their hats were all burned, their faces burned, skin hanging down, their shirts and pants all burnt and dropped off. Some of the boys had only belts around; some of the girls maybe a pair of shoes, that’s all ... They walked in silence ... The shock was so great that they lost words - nobody spoke. They were hurrying in silence just like ghosts or like shadows and even their little children did not cry. They were all hurrying to get out of this terrible place."

After he told of his own escape and many other details about that day, he concluded his story: "Well, it is not a happy story to tell you, but my friends, my students, my relatives, they all died. I am sure they have some message to tell, but they cannot speak. They have no mouth to speak, and I am one of the very lucky ones to be able to survive and must carry the message for their sake. That’s why I am here ... I ... carry my message to you: Wars are no good. Weapons, no matter how big and strong they are, they do not give us good answers for our questions. Only peace and love give us happiness. Thank you."

The witnessing of the apostles must have been quite similar to Tazu Shibama’s testimony to what happened in Hiroshima that day in August of 1945. They, too, had been involved in the most preposterous event that the world has ever seen; they had seen Jesus three days after his crucifixion - not on a grave slab but alive again, walking and talking and eating as he had before he was killed. True, they had not actually seen him come forth from the grave, but they had heard the angels’ report to the first ones to reach the empty tomb: "He is not here, but is risen, as he said. Come see the place where he lay." And there had been those surprising appearances, so unexpected, so moving, and so convincing. They knew that the Lord was alive - and they had heard his final words directing them to tell this good news to all the people of the world. They immediately became witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, preaching the Gospel wherever they went. Their experiences with the risen Christ - and their faith that was bolstered by the Holy Spirit - drove them out to the boundaries of their world to tell this very amazing and joyful story.

It is not too much to imagine Matthias, one of these eyewitnesses of the resurrection, entering a small town, gathering a crowd around him, much as the street corner evangelists do, and saying, "I want to tell you a wonderful story about a man named Jesus, who was executed on a cross but rose from the dead on the third day after his death. I knew him well ... I saw him die and I saw him buried in the tomb ... And I saw him with my own eyes after the resurrection. Listen, and I will tell you the whole story as I lived through it with Jesus and his followers." That was Matthias’ role in the apostolate; it was a ministry common to the company of the apostles. They witnessed the resurrection of Jesus and told the world about it. They began the preaching of the gospel and the spreading of the good news, and for this alone they should be remembered. Matthias, though an anonymous apostle, was an evangelist - and evangelists are never "zeros."

Matthias - Evangelist and Martyr

So many of the apostles - all but St. John - and so many other Christian missionaries and evangelists were killed for believing and preaching about the resurrection of Christ that the Greek word for witnessing (a witness - martus) became the word used in conjunction with their fate and ministry - martyrs. We celebrate Matthias’ day and all other martyrs' days in the knowledge that they were so committed to Christ that they would die to give the ultimate good news about his resurrection. They no longer feared death; death had been experienced and overcome their Lord, and they knew that when death struck them down, they could look for resurrection when God would lift up all of the dead and give them life again. They could declare, "Because he lives, we shall also live." And they were willing to die, beginning with the disciples and apostles - that little band - until a mighty army of martyrs, too numerous to number and still growing, came into existence. The ultimate expression of faith in Christ and his resurrection is to live and also to die for that faith and message.

So Matthias deserves whatever attention and time we may give to him today. We remember him because he lived faithfully and preached the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection - and also because he was faithful and died a martyr’s death for the sake of Christ. That’s why we can thank God for his life, his apostolic succession in place of Judas, and his witnessing for Christ. Who can object if tradition takes over where the text leaves off? He was enrolled to a preaching ministry, not merely an honorary office, when he was elected an apostle, and it is not too much to believe that the tradition - Matthias is to be remembered as an apostle and martyr - is true, is it? So many church people are remembered and celebrated for so many less important reasons, aren’t they?

A story is told about an unnamed bishop - centuries ago - who was traveling through Italy, apparently to Rome. He sent a steward ahead to locate the inns with the best wine; he was instructed to write "Est" (that is it) on the door of the inn with the best wine. When the steward entered the town of Montefiascone, he sampled the wine at the local inn and wrote on the door, "Est, Est, Est." The good bishop arrived, stopped at the inn, and was so enamoured of the delicious wine that he never left that town. He spread the word about the marvelous wine made in that place to any who would listen to him or read what he had to say. He was buried in Montefiascone and his death is remembered annually - for the fame he brought the town and its vintners - by a gathering of grateful people who, after a little ceremony, pour a barrel of that good wine upon his grave.

We who gather about a table and share a meal of bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus Christ, the one who died and rose again that we might have life, are indebted to those who have participated in the preaching of the gospel; it often cost them their lives and they became martyrs. Matthias was a martyr - and a model for our ministry as believers in Jesus’ resurrection today. He is no zero, despite his relative anonymity and our lack of knowledge about him. And so the Church remembers and writes about him today:

Before him the fulness of the Kingdom and the feast that is yet to come -

Behind him the cross and empty tomb - and the call to witness to the living Lord -

Remember him - Matthias as a witness who was faithful unto death.