St Stephen, First Christian Martyr

Texts: Acts 7:51-60; Galatians 2:16b-20; Matthew 23:34-39

As I've said in the notes today, we're taking a rare opportunity to honour the memory of St Stephen today, who is said to have been the first Christian martyr.  If we have got the dates relating to St Paul about right, then it seems that St Stephen was martyred around 35A.D, perhaps little more than 2-5 years after the Crucifixion.

So what do we know about him?  On a personal level, very little.  He was almost certainly a Hellenist Jew, rather than a 'Jewish Jew'; that is, he belonged to a Jewish community from outside of Israel, and spoke Greek.  Because he is not mentioned in Scripture outside of the Book of Acts, it is not clear how well he was known in the Jerusalem community of the very early Church.  A good bet is that he was a friend of St Luke, but even that is little better than an educated guess.  It may simply be that St Luke came across St Stephen's story, and used it for his own theological purposes.

All that we know about St Stephen we get from chapters 6-8 of the Book of Acts.  In chapter 6 we already see tensions in the Christian community between Jewish and Hellenist converts.  These tensions will raise serious theological divisions soon which will have to be thrashed out at the Council of Jerusalem; but those battles still lay in the future.  The immediate issue concerned the care of widows in the Church.

Like the Temple, and like synagogues, the Christian community took it for granted that they should give financial support to the widows among them, and it seems that some felt the community was looking after their Jewish widows better than their Hellenist ones.  The Apostles, still the leaders of the Christian community, didn't want to get involved – they had more than enough on their plates trying to preach the gospel and teach the new converts.  So they suggested that the Hellenist members should chose men from among their own number to be responsible for this ministry of pastoral care to widows, which they did.  They chose seven, all of them named in Acts 6:5, including Stephen.  He is named first, and we are told that he was a "man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit".  This comment may be a case of the benefit of hindsight – in this case, the hindsight enlightened by the manner of Stephen's death – or it may be that Stephen already had a good reputation in the Christian community.

There is a third possibility.  As we go through St Luke's story of St Stephen, it becomes clear that St Luke is giving a carefully constructed story which parallels the passion and death of Jesus himself.  So this reference to St Stephen as being full of the Holy Spirit may be the start of that process – Jesus is described by St Luke, on his return from baptism in the Jordan and temptation in the wilderness, as being "filled with the Holy Spirit".   This may also help to explain a fundamental difficulty in St Luke's story.  It seems that Stephen and the other six were to conduct the pastoral ministry leaving the Apostles free to concentrate on "prayer and the ministry of the word".  How is it, then, that Stephen "did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people", and became a pretty good preacher and teacher, as we can see from his address to the Sanhedrin?

Again, the parallels with St Luke's description of Jesus in his gospel are striking.  Jesus was a great teacher; Jesus was a great miracle worker; Jesus had a huge reputation among the crowds.  St Luke is surely showing us that, before Stephen emulated Christ in his death, he also emulated him in his life and ministry.  Stephen is not only an archetypal martyr; he is also an archetypal disciple.

The parallels continue with his arrest.  The crowds are stirred up in opposition; he is brought before the Sanhedrin, as Jesus was, and false witnesses testify against him on trumped up charges.  The charges are remarkably similar; Stephen is accused of speaking against the Temple and the Law of Moses ("words of blasphemy").  It is even said that Stephen has talked of Jesus destroying the Temple.  And so the trial begins, but not before we are told that everyone "looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel" (although we're not told how they knew what the face of an angel looked like!).  After the charges are presented, Stephen is asked if they are true.

Then follows his lengthy address, long thought by scholars to be taken from a sermon preached in the early Church.  Once more the parallel with Jesus is striking.  If we think for a moment about St Luke's account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we recall that the stranger (who, of course, was the Risen Christ), took the same approach now attributed to St Stephen: And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

In short, Stephen makes no real attempt to defend himself, or address the actual charges against him: he takes the opportunity to explain to the Sanhedrin how Jesus as the Messiah fits into their history as set out in the Scriptures.  And, like St Peter on the Day of Pentecost, Stephen lays a few charges of his own: and now you have betrayed and murdered him – you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.

Not surprisingly, that brought an abrupt and stormy end to the proceedings.  Disregarding the formal requirements of the law (as the Council had with Jesus), they dragged him outside the city limits (as with Jesus), and began stoning him.  The parallels continue:  according to St Luke's gospel Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.  In the Book of Acts we are told: While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'.  And, of course, Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.'  Stephen cries out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them".

After Jesus' death, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body; St Luke describes him as a good and upright man".  Why was it left to him to do the decent thing?  Well, Jesus' disciples had run away, hadn't they?  And what happens after Stephen's death?  A persecution breaks out, and all except the apostles are scattered.  Then St Luke adds: Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

There is, of course, one more detail in this story that is of momentous importance to our faith history.  St Luke, in one of his masterly little details, tells us of the moment Stephen died, and then says: And Saul (Paul) was there, giving approval to his death.  What a detail that is!  Why on earth would St Luke have included that in his account if it were not true?  Saul who became Paul, companion of Luke, great evangelist and apostle to the Gentiles, was complicit in the murder of our first Christian martyr.  And in the economy of God, that was surely the first move in his conversion from fanatical opponent to fanatical proponent of the good news of the Gospel.

I want to finish by drawing your attention to the theme for today – "The Sure and Certain Hope".  Those magnificent words come, of course, from our funeral liturgy, from the words of committal.  They are the gift of the Church to all those who are devastated by the death of a loved one; and I will never take a funeral service without those words.  Think for a moment what Stephen's funeral service would be like today; for a start, it wouldn't be called a funeral, but "a ceremony to celebrate his life".  There would be no reference to the horrific manner of his death – perhaps even no reference to the fact that he was dead.  Or perhaps we would be assured that he wasn't really dead, that death was nothing at all, that Stephen had just popped into the next room.

In other words, we would have a quasi-party that would completely deny the reality of his death and of his vision of the Risen Christ.  My hope this morning is that as churches around the world remember St Stephen today we will honour him in his life of ministry, we will honour him in his martyr's death, and we will give thanks to God for the sure and certain hope that Stephen is with the Risen Christ today and for ever.  Amen.