Homily For The Feast of St. Stephen 2025

For the past two days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we celebrate the reality that God became man.  That He came to us as a little child born to Mary.  We are reminded from the start even during the feast of Christmastide that he grew into full manhood and preached and performed miracles, lived and died and lives again for us.  We are reminded over and over again that the Incarnation wasn’t just sweetness, as we associate with this time of year.  Instead, it is the tenderness of childhood that preceded all that God was going to do for us in Jesus.    

For the next three days, we commemorate martyrdom of various types.  St. Stephen is the proto-martyr, he was both a martyr in will and in deed.  St. John, whose feast day is tomorrow, was a martyr in will but NOT in deed.  St. John was more than willing to die but God appointed that he should be the only Apostle of the 12 who would not die for his faith.  He died in the faith (which we all should aspire to do) even if he was not killed for the faith by hateful men.  Finally, the Holy Innocents, those young male toddlers and babies in Bethlehem, were martyrs in deed but not in will.  They couldn’t assent to belief in Jesus but were murdered all the same because of Herod’s genocide in  his attemtp to destroy the Christ child. 

What is modelled in these feast days of martyrdom is a love for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man.  A willingness of these saints not to let life or death separate them from God, because of their commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord.   

In our Epistle for today, we have the story of St. Stephen, deacon and first martyr for the risen Christ.   St. Luke tells us that Stephen, a deacon, was a man full of the Holy Spirit.  When the church was confronted with the practical needs of widows; they selected men full of the Holy Spirit to serve tables, to take care of the nitty gritty of church life so the apostles could devote themselves to teaching.   His practical role as a deacon didn’t preclude him from preaching.  In fact, his sermon is the longest in the Book of Acts, longer than St. Peter’s on Pentecost, more comprehensive than that preached by St. Paul.  St. Stephen was accused of committing blasphemy, speaking against the Temple and obedience to the Law.  St. Stephen turns the tables and says plainly that they refuse to believe the truth.  They are committed to the Temple and the Law while neglecting the One greater than Moses or the temple has come.  Moreover, they conspired to kill the Messiah.   He spoke this truth with love, and with a desire that they might repent. 

As he concludes his speech, we read that they were cut to the heart - they experienced a shared pain of conscience that was their response to the proclamation of the truth.  This phrase was used earlier in the Book of Acts to describe those at Pentecost who asked in response to the sermon, “what they must do to be saved?”  Here, they have a response as well, but they do not seek salvation through repentance and faith in Christ. Instead, they are full of rage at his preaching.  

In contrast to their rage, St. Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit.  He looked up to heaven where Christ had ascended in the days before Pentecost.   He looks up and God grants him a vision of the Ascended Christ, as if the heavens are opened up.  It is very reminiscent of Christ’s baptism when the heavens were opened up and the spirit descended like a dove.  Here, the heavens open and Christ is standing.  Jesus, here is referred to as the Son of Man.  This title Son of Man describes his ministry as a man.  It speaks to his suffering humanity, his passion and Christ’s vindication through the resurrection and ascension.  Jesus stands to show that he is not ashamed of those who profess him before men.  He is standing as an advocate to plead Stephen’s case before God the Father and to welcome the dying Stephen into God’s glorious presence.  

Stephen’s proclamation of the everliving, ascended Christ only provoked the rage of the crowd. They refuse to hear - they stop their ears and as they silence Stephen’s voice through murder.  In almost an aside, St. Luke mentions that Saul was there holding the coats so that Stephen’s murderers had greater freedom of movement to cast stones at the martyr.  

We have other evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in Stephen’s life.  As he is being killed, his concern is for union with Christ and for the souls of his murders.  In his death, he mirrors the mind of Christ towards his oppressors. Our Lord prayed that the Father would receive his spirit and here, St. Stephen asks for Jesus, the great mediator, the perfect sacrifice, to receive him.  Be assured, beloved, that God hears the voice of those who, in faith and complete dependance, ask to be received.  His love of Jesus, which allowed him to tell the truth in love, to look up to His Lord, now moves him to intercede for his persecutors, for his murders.  Lord, do not hold this sin against them.  St. Stephen could have just as easily been praying -  “Lord, visit them and grant them repentance and faith.”  We should remember that Saul of Tarsus heard these words firsthand and witnessed the peaceful embrace of martyrdom by St. Stephen.  The next verse after the conclusion of our Epistle is a statement in Acts 8:1. St. Luke writes, “And Saul was consenting unto his death.”  Sometimes the most unrepentant, hateful of persecutors become apostles.  St. Stephen was that witness, that martyr, whose holiness and faithfulness were inescapable reminders of the pursuing grace of God in Jesus Christ.  This is the same Jesus Christ who confronted Saul on the way to Damascus. This is the same Jesus Christ who was proclaimed among the Gentiles to the glory of God by St. Paul the Apostle. 

Let us praise the God who saves not only the faithful witnesses themselves, but through their faithful witness of the Gospel, even a witness unto death like St. Stephen, saves the rebellious and lost.  And like St. Stephen, let us turn our eyes to Jesus and praise the King of Heaven, who was born to us as a little child this Christmastide.  Let us give thanks that he is the ascended Lord who stands and advocates for those who look to him to save them. 

Let us pray.  GRANT, O Lord, that, in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of thy truth, we may steadfastly 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 who suffer for thee. our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.