Saturday (12/26) St.Stephan. : Matthew 10:17-22
Yesterday we celebrated Christmas remembering the awesome gift of God’s coming into our world in the person of Jesus to bring peace on earth and good will to all. Yet, it is a jolting shift in gears to move in the Church’s liturgical calendar to today, when we commemorate the feast of St. Stephen the Martyr, a person violently killed for his faith in Jesus of Nazareth. It seems ‘out of sync’ with the season of anticipation and hope during Advent and the celebration of Christmas. But these readings may bring a powerful message of the season.
What is the connection between Bethlehem and Calvary – the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and his passion and death on a cross? The very reason the Son of God took on flesh and became a man for our sake was to redeem us from slavery to sin and death and to give us new life as the adopted children of God.
We could easily become sentimental about the birth of a child; but this feast of the first Christian martyr is a reminder of reality. The Word made flesh will submit himself to the worst that our world can do. In the very act of doing that he will be giving witness to the truth. All true disciples of his will be ‘martyrs’ in the original meaning of that word: marturein in Greek means ‘to bear witness’; a martyr is a witness to Christ. We are called to announce, through our day to day actions, that God is in our midst...
And that is the true spirit and call of Christmas- to discover how we can live into the presence of God in our day to day lives during this holy and joyous season witnessing to the Lord as Stephen did.
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