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Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate the heavenly birthday of Stephen the first martyr. At first glance these might not seem to bare much relation to one another. But it was the coming of Jesus that gave to those who received him and believed in him "the right to become children of God" (see John 1:12). And we can see in Stephen that it was because of the way in which he lived as a trusting child of God on earth that he was prepared to make an almost seamless transition to the life of heaven.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
Jesus said we must become like little children to enter the Kingdom of God (see Matthew 18:3). If, then, martyrdom is, par excellence, entrance to the Kingdom, the martyrs are the ones who most need to be childlike. And this is in fact what we observe in Stephen. The reason that his opponents "could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke" was because he did not worry excessively about planning a speech but was able to receive what he was supposed to say such that the Spirit of his Father was speaking through him.
The reason Stephen was able to endure to the end was because of his childlike trust in the one who was waiting to welcome him home. He was so grounded in his relationship with God that the veil between heaven and earth grew thinner the closer he came to death, even to the degree that he was able to say, "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God". This was a desirable sight for a child waiting for his elder brother to welcome him into his Father's house. It was love drove out even the fear of suffering and death. His visage was so childlike at that moment as to even appear angelic to the Sanhedrin who were observing (see Acts 6:15).
In Stephen we see an example of how the world was turned upside down by the birth of Jesus. The birth of an infant gave power to martyrs that made them stronger than any force on earth. Rather than becoming less like children the more their opponents imposed upon them, oppressed them, and made them suffer, the more childlike they in fact became. And as they became increasingly childlike they became more powerful, not less, as with Stephen whose life was a witness that "a young man named Saul" could apparently not forget.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your kindness.
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