[Machine transcription]
And Stephen said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God.
You may be seated.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints of God, Merry Christmas, and God be praised that Jesus coming in our flesh
gives us such hope, such peace, such joy and comfort.
But it’s a little bit shocking, I think, to come to church the day after Christmas
and hear the stoning of Stephen read, don’t you think?
You know, that we’ve just been singing, away in a manger, and the lowly cattle areâ¦
the cattle are lowing, and the baby awakes but doesn’t even cry, and the⦠the peace
and comfort of the angels, and then it’s a⦠it’s a⦠just a shock to hear Stephen
standing there in Jerusalem three and a half years after the ascension of Jesus, confessing
Christ and preaching, and then the scribes and the Pharisees take up stones to stone
Him.
It’s a⦠it’s a⦠interesting to just note in the calendar that the three days after
Christmas are these saints’ days, first St. Stephen, the proto-martyr, the first martyr
of the New Testament church, and then St. John, the only apostle to die of a natural
death, that’s celebrated on December 27th.
And then on December 28th, it’s the Feast of the Holy Innocents, those who died first
because of Jesus’ incarnation, killed by Herod in Bethlehem on that horrible day when
He sent the soldiers to try to destroy the Christ.
Now why is it?
Why are those the texts that we hear right after Christmas?
I don’t think that it’s on purpose.
In fact, I mean, most of the Saints’ Days are the Saints’ Days.
I mean, we don’t know the days where the saints were born or where the saints died.
So normally the saints’ days are put in the calendar because like they had some bones
from Stephen and they like moved them from one place to another, and that chapel where
the bones of St. Stephen was was dedicated on December 26th, and so that went⦠became
the day in the calendar.
I don’t know if that’s what happened for St. Stephen, but that’s⦠that’s how
it normally happens, something like that.
You’re moving the relics around and then it gets⦠it gets put in the calendar.
here, but I think it is actually quite nice. Well, I don’t know if nice is the right
word for it. It’s quite helpful for us to consider the connection between Christmas,
the birth of Jesus, and the martyrdom of Stephen.
Now, we’re going to look at the martyrdom a little bit closer, but I want to read to
you a few lines from a sermon preached by Bishop Fulgentius. I think that’s how to
say his name, in the 6th century. He died in the year 533. And he preaches about Christmas
and the death of St. Stephen in this way.
Yesterday, my dear brethren, we celebrated the birth and time of our timeless king. Today,
Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of one of his soldiers.
Yesterday, our king, clothed in a robe of flesh, came forth from a virginal womb and
deigned to visit this earth.
Today, a soldier, leaving the tabernacle of his body, departs as a conqueror for heaven.
The former, birth, preserving the majesty of divinity, assumed the lowly form of human
nature and entered this world to do battle.
The latter, Stephen, laying aside corruptible bodily trappings, has ascended to reign unceasingly
in the palaces of heaven.
The oneâ¦
I like thisâ¦
I like this comparison here.
The one descended, veiled in flesh.
The other ascended, laureled in blood.
Yesterday the angels sang exultingly, glory to God in the highest.
Today they’ve joyously received the blessed Stephen into their midst.
Yesterday Christ was wrapped for us in swaddling clothes.
Today blessed Stephen is clothed by Him with a stole of immortality.
Yesterday the narrow crib carried the infant Christ.
Christ. Today, the boundless heavens receive the triumphant Stephen. Our Lord descended
alone that he might make many ascend. Our King has humbled himself that he might exalt
his soldiers.” So Stephen dies because he had faith and trust in Christ who was born.
Now, it’s amazing the account that St. Luke gives us of the martyrdom of Stephen, but
it is according to our Lord’s promise.
You’ll remember that⦠that Jesus, when He was entering into Jerusalem, wept over
her and said, “‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned all
those who were sent to you, how I’ve longed to gather you under my wings as a hen gathers
her chicks, but you were not willing, so I will send more to you, and you will destroy
them, you will kill them.”
And so it is with Stephen.
He was a deacon appointed by the early church to serve in the church and to bless those
who needed blessing.
But as the persecution was rising in Jerusalem, Stephen was identified as one of the chief
problems and he was brought before the Pharisees and the scribes and accused and eventually
condemned.
You’ll notice in our⦠in our epistle lesson that it skips quite a few verses.
If you want some homeworkâ¦
Let me just see if you want some homework.
I’m going to look at your faces to see if you’reâ¦
You guys do look like you want homework actually, soâ¦
So your homework is to read those verses that were skipped in the epistle lesson.
It skipped from verse 2 to verse 51.
That’s a long sermon that Stephen preached.
I’ll give you the summary of it.
He starts all the way back with God’s promises and says, you remember Abraham?
You didn’t like him.
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph?
You didn’t like him.
Remember Moses?
You rejected him, threw him out of Egypt.
And the Lord said that another⦠he would raise up another prophet like Moses from among
your brethren.
That means that the Lord is gonna send more prophets and you’re gonna reject them.
The Lord sent you prophet after prophet and you rejected them and you killed them and
you cast them off until at last the Lord sent you His Son and Him you also rejected.”
You can maybe understand why they were upset at the sermon because Stephen was pointing
out that their pattern of rejection, rejecting the Lord’s Word, extended all the wayâ¦
In fact, it culminated at their rejection of Jesus, the Son of God, sent to rescue them
and redeemed them. And instead, they took him outside the city and crucified him.
So, they take up stones. They gnashed their teeth at Stephen and they took up stones.
In fact, that little detail is helpful for the dating of the event. If you like the history,
you’ll remember that the Romans had conquered the region and Jerusalem and Judea were under Roman
control and while the Romans⦠they left the Jewish court in place, the Sanhedrin,
so that they could decide on matters and they could judge things.
They had taken away from them the right of capital punishment, so that if the Sanhedrin
wanted to execute someone, they would have to go to the Roman governor and ask for execution.
That⦠that’s why even after they condemned Jesus, they have to bring Jesus to Pilate
to be crucified because⦠because they couldn’t stone Him because they⦠the Romans had made
that illegal.
But there’s a little window of time after Pontius Pilate is recalled from Jerusalem
and the next governor had arrived, a little window of a few months that was about three
and a half years after the ascension of Jesus into heaven.
And we think that that’s probably the window when the stoning of Stephen occurred because
there wasn’t a Roman governor there.
So they were⦠they were able to kind of get away with this stoning that’s there.
So that⦠that, by the way, dates the stoning of Stephen three and a half years after the
ascension of Jesus, and it⦠and it puts it seven years, almost exactly seven years
after the baptism of Jesus as Daniel prophesied.
So they gnash their teeth at Stephen.
They throw their coats down at Saul’s feet, Paul’s feet there, and they go and they stone
him.
But look at what happens.
As Stephen’s life is being beaten out of him, he says,
Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
Now, that’s not right.
We know that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, but look at what Stephen sees.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus standing to welcome him, it’s marvelous.
They cried out with a loud voice, they stopped their ears, they rushed to gather at him,
they cast him out of the city, and they stoned him.
They laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
just like Jesus prayed Psalm 31 on the cross.
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
So, Stephen prays also, and then falling on his knees,
he cries out with a loud voice, just like Jesus did.
Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.
Stephen cries out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
And when he had said this, he fell asleep,
in Jesus’ name, and is born into heaven.
Now, even though these stories of the martyrs in the Bible and after the Scriptures are
closed are sometimes difficult for us to hear, I think they’re necessary because the Lord
has more than one crown to give us.
I was reading this reflection.
It’s in the Treasury of Daily Prayer for those of you who have it.
It’s really quite nice.
this old Lutheran teacher, Herbinger, says, preaching on St. Stephen, that the Lord will
give us four crowns. That’s what the word Stephen, the name Stephen means, by the way,
Stephanos. It means crown. But the Lord has four crowns to give to us, and they are these,
the gift of righteousness, the beginning of righteousness, the perfection of righteousness
or the purifying of righteousness,
and the glory of righteousness.
The Lord has these four crowns like He did for Stephen for us.
First, we have the gift of righteousness.
This is the crown of the forgiveness of sins.
This is the crown that the Lord Jesus puts on you
when He baptizes you.
This is the crown of eternal life
that comes when God comes to you and says,
I’m no longer mad at you.
All your sins I’ve suffered for.
The blood of Christ clothes us with this righteousness of Christ.
This crown, this first crown, the crown of grace, of gifted righteousness, is the crown
that saves us.
By grace you are saved through faith.
And that’s even not your own, it’s the gift of God.
So that you are⦠you are wearing now⦠you can’t see it, but can you imagine if
you could, if we could just look at each other and see this crown of righteousness, this glowing
with the white radiance of the perfection of Christ or His blood there covering us with
His perfection, you wear that crown, and by that crown you escape sin, death, and the devil,
and you will appear before the Lord in heaven. But there’s a second crown,
the crown of righteousness begun. This is the crown of good works.
This is the crown that the Lord Jesus gives you when He gives you men a wife to love and serve,
when He gives you women a husband to love and serve, when He gives you parents children,
when He gives you as children to your own parents, when the Lord gives you neighbors,
when the Lord gives you vocations, when the Lord gives you callings, when the Lord puts
someone in front of you who needs your help, this is the crown of righteousness begun,
started, just barely started.
It’s the crown of love.
It’s the crown of good works.
It’s the reason why the Lord Jesus doesn’t just baptize you straight into eternal life
life, but he lets you stick around. Why? So that you might love and serve one another.
Stephen, as a deacon, wore this crown as he was giving out food to the poor, helping the
distribution to the widows especially, and he wears this crown when he stands up to preach
and brings God’s Word to the people. But following the second crown of righteousness
begun becomes the third crown, which is righteousness purified, or righteousness tried, or we could
call it this, it’s the crown of thorns. This is the crown of suffering. This is the
crown of affliction. This is the cross that the Lord gives to every Christian. Remember
Jesus says it like this, those who would follow me, those who would come after me, let them
But take up his cross and follow me.”
So the Lord gives us a share in that thorny crown that he wore on the cross.
Stephen wore that crown.
The jewels were grapefruit-sized stones crushed into his body.
And you wear that also.
I think at Christmastime, have you noticed this?
I mean, this song, the hopes and fears
of all the years are met, and it is a strange thing
that at Christmastime, we probably feel more acutely
than any other time of year, our own suffering,
all the things that are wrong,
all the people that have died and gone before us
into heaven and that are not gathered
with us around the table.
We feel the sorrow and the pain and the difficulty
of living in this life, and it keeps coming.
But I want you to remember that all this suffering and all this affliction is given to you as
a crown from Jesus.
And then the fourth crown, which is the crown of glory.
It’s a wonderful gift that we get to see in the text, Stephen given this crown by Jesus.
when He, covered in stones, falls asleep and dies.
You do not yet have this crown.
You are three-fourths crowned.
So am I.
But one day soon, the last crown will be placed on your head.
The Lord will call you to glory.
He’ll take you out of this veil of tears to be with Himself in heaven, either by your
own death or by His coming to give us the gift of the resurrection and life eternal.
And the Lord will put on you the same crown, the same Stephen that He gave to Stephen,
and that is a sinless glory, life without end, every tear wiped away, where there is
There’s no more sorrow or sighing, no more crying or sickness or sin or temptation where
death and the devil are thrown into the lake of fire and only glory remains.
This is the last crown, and it’s the crown that we strive for.
So, let us rejoice that Jesus, our King, is crowning us. Righteousness given,
righteousness begun, righteousness purified, and soon, righteousness in glory.
Soon. He’s promised. Amen. And the peace of God that passes all
understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
