I’m not a musician. I’ve only ever been “booed” off stage once in my life.  Maybe twice after today.  Perhaps I should explain.

I work for a university and it was becoming clear that the more senior people were becoming frustrated with the service we were providing. People were in danger of losing their jobs. Not me. But others.

So I approached a man called Noel Bruton with the problem and said, “Look, what can we do to protect these people’s jobs?” And he gave me the answer. He also told me how we’d got into the mess in the first place, how to get out of it and how to prevent it from ever happening again. Brilliant! Everybody loved the ideas – all except the people whose jobs we were trying to protect. You see, they’d become completely inflexible over the years. It had to be done a certain way – their way. They knew that nobody was happy with the way things were, but they either couldn’t or wouldn’t change. And so they “ambushed” me, heckled and picked at the trivial as I presented the way forwards. Not only did I fail to improve things, I actually made them more inflexible than ever. I turned into the final nail in their coffin. Only one is still there today.

And so I can empathise with Stephen’s predicament. He had a tough message to deliver and the audience was bound to be hostile. Unlike me, he knew what he was getting into. But Acts 6 says, Stephen was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”. Standing before the Sanhedrin, accused of blasphemy (using blasphemous words against Moses and God, of continuing the preaching that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the Temple and change the customs attributed to Moses), his opponents almost seem to put the words of Jesus into his mouth in condemnation. In fact, there are many startling similarities in the trials of Jesus and Stephen. Both were convicted under “mob rule” rather than a serious judicial process. Both were rejected by the same council – the Sanhedrin had learned nothing from the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his defence, Stephen makes an extraordinary speech; he takes the tradition of his accusers and turned it with deadly logic against them. By using Israel’s history as his defence, he guarantees a hearing for the message and that he won’t be “cut short”. He also reminds them that God works through actions as well as through the words of the prophets. He also reminded them of their own crimes in the behaviour of the nation’s leaders who had repeatedly rejected both divine revelation AND the men God had raised up to further His purposes.

Just like Jesus, Stephen could have kept quiet. He didn’t have to lie to secure his freedom, he simply had to say nothing. When Jesus was asked if He was the Christ, He could have said nothing, but instead He told the truth. Similarly, Stephen spoke the truth when silence could have bought him his life. And he chose to do it in the most offensive way possible to those who were to judge him. They were “furious and gnashed their teeth at him”, full of violent rage – a direct comparison with Psalm 36, when the author describes the madness of the enemies who seek his life for no reason. Stephen’s words revealed their fanaticism, their hypocrisy – unable or unwilling to repent, to acknowledge the truth, they raged against him with a madness more suited to a lynching than to proceedings before a court of law.

But Stephen, faced with this fury, finds strength. Is given strength. Stephen receives a vision. He sees heaven before him, with Jesus standing beside Our Lord. At His own trial Jesus said, “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming with the clouds of heaven.” But instead of being seated, Jesus is standing, to welcome Stephen into God’s presence. And Stephen is very precise in his words. “The Son of Man”. The only time this title is used in the New Testament outside the Gospels, from the lips of Jesus. The title refers directly back to the Old Testament; Daniel in fact, and his vision where “one like a son of man” stands before God and is given “Dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve Him”. If that is the case, then Stephen is the first Christian to see Jesus, not only as the Jewish Messiah, but as the universal saviour of mankind. His defense speech where he systematically broke down  Israel’s past  can also be seen to emphasise a world mission and to leave behind the static, corrupt institution of their Jewish heritage and to become a pilgrim people as Israel at its best had been. On the journeyings of Abraham, and of Moses, constantly questing for the Promised Land. And on the “Tent of Witness”, the Tabernacle, the symbol of the presence of God with the people of His choice as they moved to fulfil their destiny as the messengers of his truth in all the nations. And, don’t forget, in the crowd was a young man called Saul, a fanatical Pharisee who, eventually, and with a little “persuasion”, became a champion of the Gentiles, and who probably did the most to make that world mission happen than anybody else.

Stephen’s last words also echo Jesus. “Lord Jesus, accept my spirit”. The vision had been with him to the end. And finally, “”Do not hold this sin against them”. As Augustine said, “If Stephen had not prayed, the Church would not have had Paul”.

Just as the death of Jesus was the opening chapter of a new beginning, so too was Stephen’s death. The Jewish authorities clamped down on this subversive little group who followed Jesus, forcing them out of Jerusalem and so beginning, unwittingly, the mission of the Church in the world. Wherever they went, they proclaimed the Gospel so that “the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church”. One barrier after another was broken down by the power of the Holy Spirit. Samaritans, Ethiopians, Romans all came to Christ. The Gospel spread to Damascus, Phoenicia, Cyprus. Most important of all, it reached Antioch and received new strength to push on into Asia Minor, Greece and the very capital of the Roman Empire itself – under the leadership of one Saul of Tarsus, who was present at the death of Stephen.

OK, so that’s a straight run through of the facts. But, like all history, it is only worthwhile if it can be seen from the present. History repeats.

What was the reaction of the Sanhedrin? “They ground their teeth”. “They stopped their ears”. They refused to accept the figure of the Son of Man as the crucified Jesus of Nazareth.

Does the Christian message provoke fury anymore? In a society which treats the Christian message as, at best trivial, and at worst weird, is Stephen’s message and death relevant? “There go the Christians. Aw, bless ‘em”.

The Christian life is a fight; not a picnic. Of course, we are saved through the finished work of Jesus Christ. We believe, receive, trust in Christ and depend on Him. But we must “fight the good fight of the faith” as Paul, the witness to Stephen’s death, wrote to Timothy.

No one, who has ever attempted to do battle for Jesus Christ will doubt that there are real and fearful enemies to face. The world, the flesh and the Devil. This means fighting the spirit of the age you live in; the modern idolatries of money, of pleasure as an end in itself. It means fighting our own tendencies. “What is your greatest enemy on the mission field?”, a missionary was once asked. “Myself”, was his reply.

We have to fight the apathy facing the church today. We have to fight the, “I couldn’t care less” attitude of the world. Jesus could not have cared more. Stephen could not have cared more. Courage, endurance, discipline and, most importantly, obedience.  

It still takes courage to stand up today and be counted – but it is courage in the face of apathy and ridicule, not of death. Not in this country anyway. If Stephen could condemn himself by his support of the Christian faith, surely we can risk a little abuse? Perhaps you are the only Christian in your office, classroom or even home? Naturally timid, you find the sense of loneliness a heavy burden, and you are tempted to compromise and go with the herd. Not long ago, another of my colleagues “came out” as a Christian. He said that, without an open Christian in the office already (namely me), he would not have been comfortable.
 
It still takes endurance. Endurance, in the New Testament, means “Masculine constancy” – the staying power of a veteran. There are times when things go wrong, and we have to dig our heels in and stand firm. Stephen could have given in and denied the truth to save his life. He chose not to.

Discipline is a dirty word today. But without it, how can we hope to win? “Train yourself in godliness”, Paul reminds Timothy, “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way”. Elsewhere, Timothy is told of the need for training and toughness, as well as for singleness of purpose. Strange, isn’t it, how so often Christians imagine they can go out to fight without any kind of serious training or preparation?

And, finally, obedience. Stephen’s ultimate gift to us all. Obedience unto death. Luke’s simple telling of the contrast between the cruel violence of the stoning and the inner peace and joy of the martyr and intercessor who fell asleep on earth in order to join his Lord in heaven.

Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus, we know that you are the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Help us to follow you, and to involve ourselves in this, your world.
So that we may see your Kingdom come,
A Kingdom of love and light, on earth as in heaven.
Lord Jesus, when will we realize that there is only one way? Your way.
When will we realize the radical dimension of your gospel?
A gospel that provided guidance and direction as we seek to find solutions to the world’s great issues and problems?
A gospel that challenges and makes demands of us.
A gospel that calls for commitment and involvement.
Amen

Conx

Copyright (c) Conway Billington

• Topic: Sermons

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