Sermon for the Feast of Stephen

Sermon for the Feast of Stephen

[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 are… the cattle are lowing, and the baby awakes but doesn’t even cry, and 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 dedicated on December 26th, and so that 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 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 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 one… I like this… 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. 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 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 homework… Let me just see if you want some homework. I’m going to look at your faces to see if you’re… You guys do look like you want homework actually, so… 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 way… In fact, it culminated at their rejection of Jesus, the Son of God, sent to rescue them and redeem 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’s why even after they condemned Jesus, they have to bring Jesus to Pilate to be crucified because they couldn’t stone Him, because 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 able to kind of get away with this stoning that’s there. So that, by the way, dates the stoning of Stephen three and a half years after the ascension of Jesus, 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, 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 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 as He gave to Stephen, and that is a sinless glory, life without end, every tear wiped away, where there is 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.