Courage to confess Christmas in the face of death

Sermon for St. Stephen’s Day

Acts 6:8-15, 7:54-60  +  Matthew 23:34-39

You’ve probably wished a Merry Christmas to more than a few people this year, and you don’t look any worse for it. Sometimes we hear in the news of backlash against people for saying Merry Christmas, but overall Christmas is still tolerated in our country, partially because our society has so emptied it of its original meaning that not enough of Christ remains to offend anyone, except for His name glaring at them in the word “Christmas,” which is, I’ll grant you, sometimes still enough to make people mad.

Why is that? Why do people get mad at Christmas and at those who believe in it? After all, Christmas is meant for everyone, because Christ came to be everyone’s Savior, the Savior of the world. The message of Christmas is an open, divine invitation to everyone, to believe in Him who was born in Bethlehem to be your Savior. Why does that invitation make people so angry?

It makes them angry because, implied in that invitation is this other divine message: You’re not good enough as you are. Your traditions are not good enough. Your family is not good enough. Your works are not good enough. Your beliefs are not good enough. You were born in darkness. You have guilt clinging to you for your every word and deed, and even for the very nature with which you were born. You need saving, and there’s only one way to be saved: by acknowledging your sin, by abandoning who you are, and by fleeing in faith to the One who was born on Christmas.

And so we arrive at this strange celebration of the feast of St. Stephen, Protomartyr, that is, the first martyr, the first Christian to seal his testimony of Christ with his death. This day marks the beginning of the world’s hateful attempt to rid itself of Christians, which flows from its hatred of the One who was born in Bethlehem and murdered at Calvary because the world takes offense at both the manger and the cross.

See how the Jews raged against Stephen! Why? Because he was preaching openly in Jerusalem that Jesus was the Christ that Israel had been waiting for, the Christ who had been born in Bethlehem, the Christ whom Moses and the Prophets had prophesied, the Christ who had fulfilled the Old Testament and who had instituted the New Testament in His blood—blood that had been shed by the Jewish leaders, in league with Pontius Pilate. The Temple was no longer the place to seek God; now Jesus Christ was the place to seek God. So the Jewish government stoned him and put him to death publicly, as a witness, as a testimony to how deadly it can be to believe in Christmas. They meant for Stephen’s death to be a deterrent, to stop any of these other Christians from believing in Christ, or at least from confessing their belief out loud.

But it had just the opposite effect. Christians were forced to confront the reality: to believe in Christ is to attract the world’s hatred. And so they were also confronted with a choice: Deny the One who was born in Bethlehem and be accepted in the world, or confess Christ and face losing everything on earth. Thanks be to God, most Christians chose the latter, and because of the courage they showed and the sacrifices they made, you and I are still celebrating Christmas.

This St. Stephen’s day marks the beginning, not only of the world’s attempt to rid itself of Christians, but of the Christian’s willingness to face death for the sake of confessing Bethlehem’s Child. That’s really what we celebrate today. We deal with the reality of the world’s hatred and with the Christian’s obligation to sacrifice everything here for the sake of Christ. But we celebrate the reality of the strength and courage that God has given to countless Christians to follow in the footsteps of Christ all the way to death, beginning with Stephen, who was blessed, not only with courage, but with the conviction that even his abusers could be forgiven by God, and with the desire and prayer that they be forgiven, as one of them was, a man named Saul, later known as the Apostle Paul. May the Lord use the example of Stephen to help us find some of that same courage and conviction, so that we’re ready, not only to say Merry Christmas, but to die for saying it, knowing that the One who was born in Bethlehem now stands in glory at the right hand of the Father, and so will all who are faithful unto death. Amen.