Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.
We might be a little disoriented by today's gospel and feast. Just like that the infant in the manger recedes into the background for the celebration of the first martyr, Saint Stephen. How, we might well wonder, did we get from there to here? Yet although it is abrupt, there were from the very first hints that the story of the baby Jesus was tending toward more than mere sentimentality. The baby was already sharing the lot of the outcasts and the unwanted by being born in manger, already hinting that he was going to become food for the world. Further hinting at the difficult destiny that awaited, he was given myrrh by one of the Magi, an oil used for to anoint bodies for burial. Then later, when he was presented in the temple, Simeon predicted that he would be a sign that would be opposed. One early revelation of this opposition is the feast of the Holy Innocents that we will celebrate in a few days. Jesus' own infancy did not leave much room for sentiment.
Saint Stephen was the first example of one whose explicit testimony to Jesus himself led to his persecution and death. But because of this he was the first example in which we see the entire life of Jesus reproduced by the power of his Spirit. Yesterday we celebrated the birth of Jesus into the world. But today we celebrate the fact that the one who was born into the world was also born so completely into the heart of Stephen his follower. We celebrate that what was true of Jesus by being born among us as a man becomes true of his disciples.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
Stephen was indeed given a lengthy defense to make to those who opposed him. But even more than that the Spirit urged him on toward imitation of Christ, forgiving his persecutors and even handing over his spirit to Jesus just as Jesus had handed over his own Spirit to the Father. In giving us this feast immediately after Christmas it is as though the Church does not want us to neglect the full picture of our salvation. It would not profit us that Jesus was born on earth if he is not born in our hearts. And this necessarily means taking up our crosses and following him. But this need not be a cause of destress for us. Like Stephen we can maintain an angelic countenance in spite of great difficulties precisely because we do not face them alone. It is Jesus who is living his life through us. And in our shared yoke, he does the heavy lifting.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
We are called to not only begin, but to continue without turning back. We need to convert our initial enthusiasm and fervor into a plan for the long game. Mary as the perfect model of how this is done. She "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart" (see Luke 2:19).
The baby who was born to die is born in us to reproduce his life and death within us. But as in his own life, when we surrender in obedience to the Father's will, death is not the end of our story, just as it was not the end of his. Even before Stephen surrendered his spirit into the hands of Jesus he already reached out in faith to the life of heaven that awaited him.
Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man
standing at the right hand of God.
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