NOTES for Act 6:8-10

During the first three days after Christmas, we remember three different ways of confessing Christ and giving ourselves to Him. First we remember St. Stephen. He is the clearest example of how we should conduct ourselves if we are to be consistent in our choice and our trust in God. Stephen was one of those who were faithful in little, and therefore much was entrusted to him. He worked, preached, and bore witness to Christ through deeds and miracles. To work for Jesus, to take responsibility for what you do and for the people entrusted to you—this is the disciple's and brother's first and simplest path. Each person has a different measure of work along this path, and Stephen, a man who carried out his work to the end, who did not retreat a single step and gave his life for Jesus, is an example and helper to us all on this path.

During the first three days after Christmas, we remember three different ways of confessing Christ and giving ourselves to Him. First we remember St. Stephen. He is the clearest example of how we should conduct ourselves if we are to be consistent in our choice and our trust in God. Stephen was one of those who were faithful in little, and therefore much was entrusted to him. He worked, preached, and bore witness to Christ through deeds and miracles. To work for Jesus, to take responsibility for what you do and for the people entrusted to you—this is the disciple's and brother's first and simplest path. Each person has a different measure of work along this path, and Stephen, a man who carried out his work to the end, who did not retreat a single step and gave his life for Jesus, is an example and helper to us all on this path.

What really happened? A man, pronouncing a long speech on Israel’s history, goes into ecstasy, has a vision and tells it. It would seem like what of special, are there not different visions? But the consequences are more tragic: it is particularly after these words about vision that people will fall on Stephen to kill him! What so repugnant did he say?

Stephen speaks of Israel’s way, how this way leads to the coming of the Messiah - everything is normal; when he accuses the spiritual leaders of the people of murdering the Just One, they gnashed teeth, but there is still no crime here. And everything goes to the fact that he should be released. But at that same moment Stephen is being full with Holy Ghost, Who doesn’t only open a wonderful vision to him, but also incites him to testimony about it {the vision}. Calling Jesus Just one, or even Messiah isn’t a crime, but an expression of opinion, while saying that you see Him in the heavens on the right hand of the Father is either truth, either blasphemy. The Holy Spirit doesn’t put up with the incompleteness of choice of the members of the Sanhedrin, quite as He doesn’t put up with our indecision; - He puts people then and now in front of the necessity of giving a concrete and unambiguous answer to the question: Who is a Jesus for me?

The account of the reprisal against Stephen begins immediately after the mention of his appointment to ministry, and the story of his witness lasts longer than the story of the ministry itself, so that we do not even know whether Stephen was given much time to work normally. But from what is said we can see that Stephen was a good worker, and it appears that what he did was enough for Christ's opponents to turn specifically against him.

It is impossible to refute Stephen; there is nothing to answer him on the merits, but they want to silence him by any means, and here lawlessness begins on the part of the accusers. In every unrighteous reprisal against Christ's disciples there is something reminiscent of the reprisal against the Teacher Himself: again the accusers stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, again they produced false witnesses... But the Teacher had warned them in advance: "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you..." (John 15:20).

Today we read how the Church overcomes another crisis situation. The problem is no small matter: in a community where love for one another should be the principle of relationships, the neglected suddenly appear, and, as usually happens in the world, they turn out to be members of a "socially vulnerable minority": the widows of the "nonlocal" Hellenists, Jews who had come to Jerusalem from the diaspora and believed in Jesus.

So the weakest found themselves not at the center of everyone's attention and love, but the opposite. What matters for us now is not the indication of such a misfortune in the Church (the lack of love and indifference of Christians surprise no one today), but how it is resolved: Stephen appears on the scene, a deacon and martyr, full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, faith, and power, along with the other six deacons, ready to restore peace and love in the community of the first disciples.

God, one way or another, acts through people who are open to the guidance of His Spirit. And for you and me, what matters most is to be exactly such people, people of the Spirit, wisdom, and faith, so that through us the Lord can lead toward perfection the world He created for His Glory.

Stephen denounces them, and his accusers can no longer restrain themselves and rush at him. Did Stephen go too far? Would it have been better to preach more gently, without wounding anyone's pride? Then, perhaps, he would have remained alive and converted someone...

But a "softened" sermon would have become anything at all except a call to salvation, except speech about life and death. A moment has come when absolute directness is required, along with readiness to bear witness in blood to faithfulness to the words and to the Word. Stephen could not renounce what he knew to be the Truth. His witness about the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God was no metaphor; people do not give their lives for metaphors.

If at least an imitation of justice was observed in the execution of Christ, now the accusers do not even pretend to observe the law. Legal formalities are thrown aside, and mob justice is carried out, a killing without trial. These people, who did not love the Romans but got along with them perfectly well, eagerly violate the Roman ban on issuing death sentences. Stephen, however, was killed without any sentence being issued, so the letter of the ban was not violated.

And here we see Saul for the first time, a zealot for the law who is guided not by the law but by his own hatred. He still has to see that hatred is not in fact higher than the law...

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.

Stephen reminds those gathered of the historical path traveled by the people led by God, but he focuses attention on those episodes when the people rebelled against His will, rejected or failed to understand the prophets whom the Lord sent. There could have been more examples, but those Stephen mentioned were enough to bring his listeners right up to the thought that belonging to the tradition alone does not automatically ensure following the faithful course and does not guarantee obedience to God's will.

One can memorize many things; one can understand ritual prescriptions well and even be fluent in the text of Scripture. But if the heart proves closed, it is very easy not to recognize the One whom one supposedly awaited and on whom, as it seemed, one had placed all hope.