Husband. Father. Anglican Priest.
The Gospel grounds its proclamation in eyewitness testimony rather than detached religious speculation. John does not merely contemplate Christ from a distance. He bears witness to the Lord whom he knew, heard, followed, saw crucified, and encountered risen from the dead.
But all of us are called to live as people whose eyes are fixed where Stephen’s were fixed. When we serve, when we speak, when we suffer, when we struggle to forgive, and finally when death itself comes, the Church gives us the same direction: look steadfastly to Jesus Christ our Lord.
Stephen’s story is not finally a story about the power of the people who kill him. While his accusers rage, heaven is opened. While the stones fall, Stephen sees the glory of God. While his enemies condemn him, the risen Jesus stands at the Father’s right hand.
The Word became flesh, and that one sentence gathers the whole mystery of Christmas into itself. The eternal Son has come among us. The Life and Light of the world has come among us. The radiance of the Father’s glory has come among us. The one who made purification for sins has come among us.
The Season of Christmas is the Church’s sustained reception of the Incarnation. For twelve days, the calendar refuses to hurry away from the astonishing claim proclaimed on December 25: the eternal Son of God has taken our nature from the Virgin Mary and entered the world he made.
It is the announcement that the eternal Word through whom all things were made entered the world he made as one of us, taking flesh that could be touched and held, flesh that could hunger and grow weary, and eventually flesh that could be nailed to a Cross.