This is the liturgical year at its best…or at its worst. It is real, however. Hours after our celebration of Christmas, we have the death of a saint, the death of a Christian Martyr. The first said to die for the “new faith.” The date of his martyrdom is celebrated every year on the 26th of December.
The manger is still warm, even as Stephen grows colder and colder…
After Jesus died, it took a while for his followers to settle down and get organized. The process of organization has never been an easy one (especially in the church!)
Problems arose quickly…like “how to take care of the poor” – especially the “widows” who could not support themselves.
The apostle’s decided to “appoint a group” (a committee if you will) to handle this side of things, and one of the ones they “appointed” happened to be a guy named Stephen.
They called them deacons. There were seven of them originally. The word deacon meant a servant, or a waiting man, a minister or a messenger. Originally, it referred to the dust – raised by the “busy servant or messenger.” That is what a deacon was…
Unfortunately for Stephen his career was a short one. In addition to “doing what he could for the poor,” he also did what he could to “spread the word” about Jesus…the one who’d gotten him interested in the poor in the first place.
He loved Jesus’ care and concern for his fellow man. Jesus was like totally awesome. You didn’t just follow Jesus, you daily tried to be more like him.
It was said that Stephen healed some folks and he preached a little and he talked about his own life and how it had been changed, and it wasn’t long before the Jewish authorities called him “on the mat” to defend his “far out” views as best he could.
As far as they were concerned he was “a really bad apple” – who could spoil others with all of his “Jesus talk.” It was deemed better to get on top of the situation and to nip it in the bud.
These were the days before Christians and Jews separated. They were still worshiping side-by-side in the Temple. There was no separation between them, that is, except for all this talk about Jesus…and these “strange meals” that his followers held, “behind closed doors.” They could be a secretive bunch.
Nobody is quite sure what Stephen was thinking or even if he was thinking at all.
He made this long speech, the gist of which was that “from the year one” – the Jews had been an ornery lot, stiff necked he called them.
They may been circumcised and all and proud of their heritage, but they too, were a sneaky lot.
He didn’t know many of them that followed the Torah to a “T.” He recalled the hard time that they had given Moses in the wilderness regions. And when it came to their own prophets and spokesmen, it seemed like that had it “in” for all of them.
They way that they treated Jesus was the last and the worst example of how they were always not just missing the boat – but doing their darnedest to sink it. He was not making any friends…that day.
The authorities were quite naturally outraged and illustrated the accuracy of Stephen’s analysis by taking poor old Stephen out and stoning him to death. And therefore, the first Christian martyr…
Stoning someone to death, even someone as young and healthy as Stephen, isn’t easy. You do not get the job done with the throwing of the first few handfuls of rocks. It is harder than that. It takes some work. It takes some effort. You have to keep throwing and throwing rocks…it is a long and hot business…this stoning…stuff.
To prepare themselves for the workout, they stripped to the waist and got somebody to keep watch of their things…until they were through.
The death of Stephen was a scene Saul could never forget or erase from his memory. Years later when he became a Christian himself and was under arrest much as Stephen had been, he still spoke about that horrendous experience.
He wasn’t called Saul anymore, but by then was known as being Paul, the “Apostle to the Gentiles.” He was that great letter writing saint of the church – who still felt some pangs of guilt for when he stood guard over the pile of coats and ties and watched a young man’s death.
Stephen was the first to shed his blood for the new faith, he loved more than this life, and as Saul-who-would become Paul watched the whole grim process, it never occurred to him that by the grace of God the time was not far off when he himself would be another. And Stephen forgave them their sins, just as Jesus before him had done.
And then he closed his eyes and gave up his spirit.