Acts 6:8—7:2a, 51c-60

We celebrate today the feast of Saint Stephen, deacon and first martyr. Coming so soon after Christmas, this can feel a bit odd. We’ve just celebrated the birth of God as a human, the miraculous mystery of the divine taking on human flesh as part of a plan for the world’s salvation—and here we are, immediately after, hearing about the martyr’s death of one of Jesus’s first followers.

What are we to make of this juxtaposition?

Two comparisons come to mind.

First, the comparison of Stephen to Jesus, which many commentators have made. I think this tells us something important about God. A genre of painting of the infant Jesus depicts him holding his cross—from his birth he is already on the road to Calvary. God took on mortal flesh because it was in dying that humankind could be redeemed. This is the other side of the joy and glitter of Christmas—the knowledge that Good Friday follows soon.

God taking on human flesh also means that God is with us humans through everything. And so the story of Stephen also tells us something important about us. It tells us about our capacity for courage, our capacity for truth-telling, our capacity for witness-bearing. A capacity that is not wholly our own but constantly available when we recognize that God is with us. Stephen was the first martyr, followed by countless others, known and unknown, whose solace and comfort was that God so loved the world that God became a part of it, that God as Jesus suffered and died to save it, and that God promised to be with us always.

This comparison between Stephen and Jesus is most apparent in Stephen’s death, when he commends his soul to God, as Jesus does on the cross. But I am struck by another part of this episode, his vision of God enthroned in glory and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. Having just celebrated Christmas, having heard all the familiar stories, I am struck by another comparison: that between Stephen and the shepherds, witnesses to the heavenly host praising God: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors” (Luke 2:14).

If in bearing witness to God’s incarnation the shepherds responded with fear, awe, and joy, Stephen in his response fulfills the angels’ song of praise: “Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:60). Faced with conflict, Stephen showed peace; faced with hatred, forgiveness and goodwill.

Perhaps not our idea of peace and goodwill, but it is, and has been, all too often what is asked of us, in big and small ways, as followers of Jesus. But we can take to heart, we can find courage to bear it, because of the example of witnesses like Stephen, and because of the assurance that God is with us, here and now, always.

Amen.