St. Stephen & The First Sunday After Christmas

You may have noticed something was different this morning. The bulletin lists today as the Feast of St. Stephen and The First Sunday after Christmas. Most of us are not used to a Sunday being the Feast of a Saint. The Prayer Book tells us that Feasts of our Lord, and every Sunday is a Feast of our Lord Jesus Christ, these take precedence over the celebration of Saints. In the small print it tells us that we may celebrate a Saint’s day if it falls on a Sunday only if the Bishop gives permission. Bishop Duncan has graciously given us permission to celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen on this, the first Sunday after Christmas.

You may be asking yourself, why would we want to? St. Stephen was a deacon, and in the old Church of England St. Stephen’s day was the Feast of all deacons. In a little less than two weeks, God willing and the people consenting, I will be ordained a priest. So this is my last chance to preach to you as your deacon. As a deacon, I felt it was it was my duty to preach about the first person to serve the Jesus Christ in this order.

But more importantly, St. Stephen was also the first person to die for the truth of the Incarnation, the feast we celebrated just yesterday, where God Incarnated himself a human child in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. He died for the Truth so eloquently explained to us in today’s Gospel passage.

St. Stephen did not serve very long in his ministry as a deacon. In the beginning of Chapter 6 of the Book of Acts, we hear about the first deacons. The Apostles have realized that things have changed since Pentecost and birth of the new Church. The Apostles were so busy spreading the Good News of Christ that they were running out of time to serve the widows of the community. Realizing that they needed help, through the power of the Holy Spirit they ordained the first deacons, with St. Stephen among these new ordinands. These deacons were charged with caring for people, doing the work of pastoral care, especially to the sick, the lonely and the widowed. In all their work they were expected to show forth the saving truth of Christ, both through actions and words.

St. Stephen went about his work among his fellow Jews. At this early point in the Church, there was no separation between Christian and Jew, they belonged to the same religion it seemed. However, the divisions between the Jews were bound to blow up – it’s hard to keep a group of people who think salvation has come in the same room with people who think salvation has not come yet. The Book of Acts tells us that St. Stephen was full of faith and grace, and was working wonders and miracles amongst the people. It seems these works caught the attention of his fellow Jews, and the members of the local synagogues rioted against him. These people who were outraged by St. Stephen and had him arrested. He was charged with saying that Christ was the fulfillment of the Law and the One whom scripture foretold. To his fellow Jews who did not believe in Christ, this was blasphemy.

So St. Stephen is arrested and carted off to the council of the leaders and asked to answer for the charges of heresy. In a part omitted from today’s reading, St. Stephen goes on to give a lengthy speech about the entire history of God’s work amongst His people. He lays out the history of the world in a way the clearly shows that the Holy Spirit has sent prophet after prophet to the people of Israel to call them back home, but they have been ignored. St. Stephen lay’s this great charge against them "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. You are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it!” (Acts 6:51-53) This riled up his crowd and it became clear that this was going to end badly. The he tells them “Look…I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" (Acts 6:56) With that statement, St. Stephen sealed his fate. To the Jews listening to him he could not have said anything more blasphemous. He has just proclaimed the truth that we celebrated on the Feast of the Nativity. It was not just a prophet who was born for us, but God Himself, dwelling in human flesh. By saying that he saw Jesus, the Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God, St. Stephen is saying “The man you killed was no mere reformer or prophet, but the one, true, living God, living amongst us as one of us to save us!”

Then the rocks were thrown at him, he prayed to the Lord, and he died. St. Stephen laid down his life because he was unwilling to do anything other than proclaim what he knew: God had become flesh and dwelt among us.

If you look at our parish banner or on the stone high altar you will see a phrase written on there “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This comes from our Gospel reading today. The first 18 verses of St. John Gospel are known as the prologue to St. John’s Gospel. The other three Gospel explain the theology of what Jesus Christ means solely by narrative, by telling us His story. St. John decided to take a different route, and began his Gospel with a thick theological discourse.

This part of St. John’s Gospel is so jam packed with theology that it unfolds over time, growing in meaning and depth each time you read it. Knowing this, and just how bold a statement the prologue is, it became a custom in the middle ages for a Priest to a recite the first 14 verses of John’s Gospel as his concluding prayer. I was taught by my mentoring priests to keep this custom. After I have greeted everyone at the door, I go back to the vesting room and I recite those 14 verses which have become known as the Last Gospel. Each and every time I do this I am awed by just how much St. John was able to fit into his sentences. He wrote in a dense and beautiful Greek, which even when translated to English still retains its sense of beauty and poetry. But more than amazed, I am inspired, just as St. Stephen was, to proclaim to the world that God became Man.

Unpacking and trying to understand everything that was being said by St. John is the work of a semester long course. But to speak in gross generalizations, St. John is establishing three basic theological facts about Christ. Firstly, Jesus Christ is in fact God. Jesus Christ, who is the Word, the Son of God has always existed since the beginning of time. Although born to us in specific time and place, there has never been a time when the Son has not existed. There is one Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit that always has and always will exist. Secondly, Christ is fully human. As our altar says, The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ was no illusion, or sort of person, he was born of human flesh from the Blessed Virgin Mary. Born of a woman, just as you and I were from our mothers. Christ was fully one of us. Thirdly, Jesus Christ acts both as God and human at the same time, living in unity, joined together.

We could spend the next few hours discussing these three points, but I imagine we would not get far. The beauty of the Bible is that it is a text that always unfolds, it lives and breathes. Each time you read it, a new part of you will be enlightened, and a clearer understanding of God’s Divine Will will dawn on you.

Despite the mysteries of this text, the basic truth of it is easily said, and it is exactly what St. Stephen told his persecutors. God became man, Incarnate as one of us because he loved us so much that He could not bear to see us suffer the fate of corruption and eternal death. God prepared us for His coming through prophets and the acts of the Holy Spirit, and we denied Him and the prophets over and over again. Yet despite this disobedience He came anyways. For stating these facts to those who refused to hear them, St. Stephen died, just as many others did and continue to do so in places like the Middle East and Africa.

In the belief that beauty is of God, and shows forth God, I would like to read for you the prologue to St. John’s Gospel John from the Kings Jame’s Bible. I find in this beautiful rendering of St. John’s word the Truth of Christ in glorious mystery comes to me. Hear again the Truth that St. Stephen and so many others have and will lay down their life for:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.

He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.

That was the true light, which lighteth every man that commeth into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his Name:

Which were borne, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.