"Rabbi, when did you get here?"
The crowds don't know how Jesus got here. After all, he wasn't in the boat. They're trying to figure him out. They want some conventional reason to make sense of things. But this is beyond human understanding. They're mostly interested in Jesus because of the bread that fills their bellies. But there is a curiosity. There is a vague, muddled, sense of a deeper desire, for something more satisfying than bread. Like the woman at the well, implicit in every hunger and thirst is a hunger for the food the endures for eternal life and a thirst for the water of life. Implicit in every desire is a desire for God, who made us for himself, and who alone can satisfy us.
The proper response to this curiosity isn't to try to solve the problem with our cleverness. It isn't about figuring Jesus out. We don't have to know how he works or what causes him to choose to work. We need only know why. He does everything out of love for us. Knowing that reason we can trust him. We do not have to prepare our own words but we can rely on the Spirit to give us the words we need to speak.
Certain members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen,
Cyreneans, and Alexandrians,
and people from Cilicia and Asia,
came forward and debated with Stephen,
but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.
The crowds pursuing Jesus and the crowds persecuting Steven have something in common. They aren't particularly interested in the truth. But God's response has something in common, too. They get the truth anyway. It isn't the question they think they're asking. But perhaps they realize it is what they need to hear.
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
Our spirits rebel. It is too simple. There is nothing here to feel prideful about. And yet, somehow it rings of truth. Stephen tells people the truth about Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. This does not keep the crowd from killing him. But perhaps a seed is planted.
All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him
and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
Saul who will later become Paul is here. He witnesses the face of Stephen becoming radiant with the glory of God. Maybe this plants a seed and prepares the way for his conversion on the road to Damascus. It's hard to figure out how Jesus gets from point a to point b, especially when he is bringing people to faith. But we don't have to figure it out. We just have to believe in him and let his Spirit work.
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