Today the Lord speaks to us about how to die for another, how to die for the faith, and therefore for Him. But has it been granted to us to die for Him? No one persecutes our faith; we are free - does this mean that we have no share in martyrdom? Here is what the poet and preacher John Donne writes in the "Litany" dedicated to the martyrs:

And when You so irresistibly
Strove to die, even before it was granted You,
And afterward, when it was no longer granted You to die again,
You, in Your generously scattered mystical body, desired
To die in Abel, and yet
In Yourself. Let their body be
For our forgiveness, by meaningful acceptance
Of death, or rather, of life: for behold, there are those
For whom not to be a martyr is martyrdom.

We really are free - but if it is torment for us not to be martyrs, if love for God and people is so strong in us that everything within burns with the desire to lay down our life "for our friends," then by our life we partake of their death.

What does Jesus mean? And why, one might think, not prepare in advance, not think through at least in general terms what will have to be said when one has to testify before the authorities? God, of course, will help in a critical situation, but it would not be useless for a person himself to think through and formulate his own views and convictions, would it?

If the matter were views and convictions, then perhaps that would be exactly right. If Christianity were some new teaching, new religion, new theology, or new ethical system, then this teaching would have to be defended like any teaching, with arguments in hand, preferably with a clear and preplanned outline, or at least with ready answers to the most probable questions.

But the point is that Christianity is not a new teaching but a new life: life with Christ in the Kingdom He brought into the world. Of course, one can tell about this life just as about any other, but words alone are not enough here: behind them must stand real experience of that very life, so that the listener understands that the speaker really knows what he is talking about. And for this, the life of which the witness speaks must be a reality for him himself, a reality being lived at the very moment when he bears witness to it.

Such speech, of course, cannot be prepared in advance in any way. The breath of the heavenly Father, the breath of the Kingdom, is always unpredictable. One can never say for certain what it will reveal in a minute. Such is the life of the Kingdom in general, and only in this way can one speak about it.

The point is not that in a critical situation it is difficult to speak and therefore the direct participation of the Father, the Savior, the immediate sense of the breath of the Kingdom is needed at that moment. It is needed not only then; it is always needed. Testimony before authorities is only a particular case of testimony in general. But the probability of spiritual failure in a critical situation is, of course, higher. Therefore a Christian especially needs here what he actually needs constantly. And the Savior reminds the disciples listening to Him of this simple truth, the truth that a true witness of the Kingdom is not the one who speaks about the Kingdom, but the one through whom the breath of the Kingdom speaks. And the voice of the Father.

Today before us is the first death among Christians, if Ananias and Sapphira are not counted as Christians (see Acts 5:1-11). And the very first dying Christian is a martyr. The world continues to reject Christ and His followers. If the chief priests were afraid to put Christ Himself to death on their own, without the Romans, because He was too beloved by many among the people, then, after dealing with Him, they no longer stand on ceremony with His disciples.

The Sanhedrin, before which Stephen stands, once again hears open accusations directed at it, accusations of the death of the Righteous One. And by now they are thoroughly tired of this: they had already heard it from Peter and John at least twice (see Acts 4:5-12, 5:27-32). But this time they could not hold out. What provoked them was that Stephen honestly told them what he not only knew, but actually saw. He, like Christ, bore witness to the world about objective reality: the world is in sin, but Jesus has brought salvation. And the world has no use for such truth...

When Christ said, "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you," He also said, "A servant is not greater than his master" (see John 15:20). Stephen, a man filled with "faith and power," a true disciple of Christ, before his death says practically the same words that his Teacher spoke on the cross: he asks the Lord to forgive his persecutors... And the Church, in spite of everything, continues to grow and be strengthened precisely because it continues to act as her Lord commanded her and as He Himself acted.