Today’s first reading for the feast of St. Stephen goes hand in hand with the Gospel reading. The former is a concrete example in the earliest years of the church of Jesus’s instruction to the apostles about the hardships they would endure in carrying out his teachings together with the support they would receive to sustain them in their bravery. He warns them of the treachery and hatred they will experience because of His name, but instructs them not to worry about what to say or how to speak as they will be given what to say, “For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
Life in Service
Stephen’s life in the service of God is a vivid example of what was foretold, even to the point of becoming the first to die in the service of Christ. He spoke boldly and earnestly, yet lovingly, to those who opposed the Christian movement, even to the moment of his death, a death which may have contributed to the conversion of St. Paul. Stephen was one of seven men chosen to help serve the Hellenistic (Greek-influenced) section of the Church and has been referred to as a deacon. He was soon working great wonders and signs and caught the attention of Jewish religious authorities. They debated with him, but “could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke.”
Unable to prevail in debate, they then began to stir people up against Stephen, solicited false witnesses, and hauled him before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious and legal authority. Despite the anger and tension, all those who sat in the Sanhedrin “looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” (St. John Chrysostom observed, “For there are, yes, there are faces full-fraught with spiritual grace, lovely to them that love, awful to haters and enemies.”)
Reaction
He went on to deliver a stern lecture comparing them to the early Israelites who so often turned away from God, calling them “stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears…” Not surprisingly, they reacted as Jesus predicted and became infuriated. Stephen looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. When they heard this, they threw him out of the city and began to stone him. A persecutor of Christians, Saul, was present and consented to Stephen’s execution.
Stephen called out to Jesus to receive his spirit, and asked that their sins not be held against them. Saul was later to experience a dramatic conversion to the faith and became the Saint Paul we know as a major figure in the Church. St. Stephen shows us from the earliest days in the Church the power of the example of saints to illustrate for us Christ’s teachings in action. A wonderful feast to celebrate on the day after the Lord’s Nativity. St. Stephen, pray for us!
