Word to the Wise
Tuesday, December 26, 2023 - Dec. 26 - Feast of St. Stephen, first martyr
[Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59 and Matt 10:17-22]"Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans.....Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved." [Matthew]
The feast of the first martyr, St. Stephen, occurs the day after Christmas and serves as a grim reminder of what the baby Jesus can mean to those who follow in his footsteps! The euphoria of celebration receives a sobering wake-up call. And in a couple more days, the feast of the Holy Innocents will add to the reminder. The infancy narratives in the gospels according to Matthew and Luke are like overtures to an opera or musical theater. The future of the child in the manger will be shared by many who rejoice at his birth. We have Jesus' own words for this in the Gospel According to Matthew today.
All the usual celebrations in Bethlehem were canceled because of the war in Gaza. Christians of two Orthodox churches are at war in the Ukraine. In our own country, there is terrible polarization over how we are to treat many of the people in the list in Matthew 25:31-45 - the hungry, the homeless, the migrant, the sick, the imprisoned - even though Jesus tells us that whatever we do for them, we do for him!!! The idealization of the manger scene must give way to the challenging tasks of the everyday life and history that Jesus took upon himself and would send a Holy Spirit to help us navigate those challenges. St. Stephen's faith enabled him to stand firm against his adversaries, which included another future martyr, St. Paul (then named Saul). Christmas day calls us to an "everyday Christmas" in which Jesus is reborn in our lives over and over again. St. Stephen's day is simply a reminder of this. AMEN