Stephen the Martyr

26 December is a public holiday in Great Britain. But not because of St Stephen the Martyr whom the Church commemorates. The holiday is Boxing Day to open the boxes given at Christmas! It is a day when churches in the main are locked for the people are out at the "sales."

What is the connection between the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of the Father and his birth from Mary the pure Virgin, which we celebrated yesterday, the 25th December, and the Saint's Day we call SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY?

Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the witness for the Gospel of the Father concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was actually
put to death because of that witness. Thus the Epistle for this Day is
from Acts 7:55-60 where we read that Stephen had a vision of the exalted Lord Jesus and that his accusers stoned him to death. But as they stoned him he prayed to the Lord Jesus and asked forgiveness for his killers.

Jesus, the Messiah Saviour and Lord, was born in order to live and then to die as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Thus He shed his blood for the world, first a drop when he was circumcised a week after his birth (see the Feast of the Circumcision, Jan 1st) and then much when crucified. Stephen likewise shed his blood, not to atone for our sin, for that his Lord had already done, but to witness to and for his Lord and to begin that holy process where the blood of the martyrs is the seed from which the Church of God grows.

The Collect for this Day closely follows the information given in the Acts of the Apostles 7:55ff.: and it is addressed directly to the exalted Lord Jesus Christ:

"Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth, for the testimony of thy truth, we may steadfastly look up to heaven and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and being filled with thy Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate."

There is no expansion of Christianity in the present world without the witnessing that is prepared to go all the way and lay down its life for the Lord. And thanks be to God the Father such Faith exists in this world and is operative today. However, it is highly probable that much that goes by the name of Christian Faith in the old-line/main-line denominations of America and Europe (not to mention in the abundance of more recent "churches") has little or no connection with the Faith to which Stephen was committed. Western Christianity is so often merely the accommodation of aspects of the Christian inheritance to the secularist western society and culture to produce a comfortable form of religion.

So the feast of this day, December, 26, reminds us what truly is the Christian Faith and what is our calling as baptized believers - to be witnesses which may mean to be martyrs.

December 26 2001

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England