Feast of Saint Stephen, First Martyr
Today is the Feast of St. Stephen, First Martyr. As the First Martyr of the church, he was stoned for his witness to Christ. So we have this feast day, when we celebrate a person's rising to new life in Christ because of his death by martyrdom, following directly on the heels of yesterday's Feast of the Nativity. Today's first reading (Acts 6:8-10, 7:54-59) depicts St. Stephen's ultimate sacrifice and witness to Christ alongside the poignant words that recall Jesus' own words from the cross: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
Is it difficult to turn to this story of martyrdom the day after Christmas? For some of us it might be. Christmas is truly joyful and an awesome opportunity to celebrate Jesus becoming flesh and dwelling with us. How incredible and amazing! Maybe your Christmas day was all you hoped for and more– children and grandchildren played with their toys and laughed a lot, the food was good, the company was even better. Perhaps if you are in this group, you feel something of a letdown today so that the account of Stephen’s death only adds to the sense of let down.
Yet, as others remind us, if we spend too much time focused on the surface level of joy, it can be all too easy to think that Jesus is just a nice, sweet little baby - to marginalize Jesus into a sweet paltry little idea - that makes us merely feel good. What that can mean is that the dominant Jesus story that we tell at Christmas time can seem not to touch other peoples' real pain. Some dread this time of year because of having tragedies or no close family or friends to celebrate with, or just don’t like the commercialization of Christmas. So perhaps St. Stephen’s death is a welcome story because it gives a different focus than the baby in the manger and all of the seasonal baggage and enforced, shallow happiness that can come along with him. Certainly, today's gospel (Matthew 10:17-22) should cause us to think twice about seeing Jesus overly much as a sweet little thing, mostly for those who are happy.
During our three weeks of observing the great fast of Christmas, feasts like this one marking St. Stephen's martyrdom, or the feast of the Holy Innocents that comes in a couple days, reminds us of what it means to say that Jesus is REAL. If Jesus is REAL, if he's truly God incarnate, he's got to be able to touch us both in our moments of joy and our moments of sorrow. Jesus has got to be for us all, all the time.
The upshot of the fact that Jesus is always for us, always real, is that following Jesus is also dangerous. To be disciple of Jesus means, sometimes, saying and doing things that make no sense to others - and that even seem to take away peoples' false or shallow sense of happiness - or conversely - peoples' over-glorification of worldly cynicism, gloom and death.
For us disciples of Jesus, then, no matter what yesterday was like – today we are called, as we are each day of the year, to hold both the joy and sorrow and to witness to the good news that Jesus is for us, all the time. Today we are asked to pray, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Work in me in all the ways that you need me for this world now.
- Jana M. Bennett