St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr

Fasts and Feasts

Transcript
Welcome to Fasts & Feasts, a guided tour of the church year. I'm Jared Henderson, and today I'll teach you about St Stephen.It is the day after Christmas, and that means it is time for another feast — that's right, even while we celebrate the 12 days of Christmas, we also observe several feast days. And today's feast is really important, as it is for St Stephen the Protomartyr.Martyrs are Christians who have died for their faith. Martyrs play a special role in the church. Tertullian, a 2nd century Christian writer, called the blood of martyr's the seed of the church. By this, he meant that martyr's help grow the church even in their deaths. St Stephen is often called the Protomartyr because he is the first martyr of Christianity.
We see the story of Stephen in Acts of the Apostles, one of my favorite books in the Bibles. Acts is the story of the earliest days of the Christian church, and we see how Christians organized themselves, spread the gospel, and died for the faith. Stephen was a deacon — a man appointed to distribute food and alms in the church — who was stoned to death for refusing to recant his Christian beliefs. Remember, in the earliest days Christianity was a scandal, especially in the context of Judaism. Saul of Tarsus, or the saint we now call Paul, was an early persecutor of the Church, and he is said to have approved of the stoning of Stephen.
Let's talk for a bit about sacrifice. You see, Stephen's blood really was a seed. He died, and Paul sees this death. This is all part of a chain of events that leads to Paul's conversion, which leads to greater Christian evangelism, which leads to the authoring of many of the New Testament epistles, and so on. Stephen was sacrificed, in a sense, but crucially his death was not in vain. And the church honors him for his martyrdom.
I love that we celebrate Stephen the day after we celebrate the birth of Christ. We contrast the glories of the first advent of the Messiah with the glories of Christian martyrdom. In the context of the nativity, we can see the beauty in Stephen's sacrifice. In the context of Christ's birth, we can see that Stephen's willingness to die was evidence of his new birth in Christ. Christians are not ashamed of our martyrs, nor do we glorify violent defenses of the faith. Instead, we honor those willing to follow the way of the cross and lay down their own lives, just as Christ laid down his life for us.
A closing collectGrant, O Lord, that, in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the 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. Amen.

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