There is an old, traditional Christmas carol, dating back to the mid 1800's, entitled, Good King Wenceslaus.  Not many people are aware of the fact that the title character of that song was an actual person.  He was ruler over the country of Bohemia back in the tenth century.  And he was also a devout Christian.  One morning, on his way to worship at church, he was attacked by a band of barbarians led by his own younger brother, who opposed his rule.  They succeeded in murdering him.  But not before Wenceslaus uttered the dying words, "May God forgive you, brother."  Immediately, Wenceslaus was heralded as a martyr of the Christian faith and, by the end of that century, was celebrated as that nation's patron saint.

 Well, in that Christmas carol, the opening verse begins, "Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the feast of Stephen..."  The Feast of Stephen.  This is the festival of the church year that we are observing today.  As far back as the third century the Christian Church had designated December 26th as St. Stephen's Day.  And, it is no coincidence that this day was also memorialized in the words of that song for, like Wenceslaus, Stephen was also martyred for his faith.  Stephen was, in fact, the very first martyr of the Christian church.  And, as we heard in the 2nd Reading for today, he too died with a petition for mercy on his lips.  "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

 Now before we go any further, I imagine some of you are wondering why it is that we are observing a martyr's day the day after Christmas.  Just when families and friends have been coming together around the celebration of Christ's birth, it seems foolish and almost sacrilegious to dwell upon death.  Here we are still basking in the innocence of that new-born babe in the manger.  And suddenly, we are thrust into a scene of murderous violence.  It doesn't seem to fit the message of peace on earth, goodwill toward men.  To speak of martyrs during these twelve days of Christmas seems improper.

 The Church, though, in defiance of all cultural expectations for keeping a merry Christmas
directs her children to mark a death the day after Christ's birth.  For the fundamental fact of the Christmas Gospel is that our Savior was born among us sinners in order to die for our sins.  That's why we're observing St. Stephen's Day today, lest anyone not get it concerning the real reason for the season.  Why do you think that the last gift of the Wise Men from the East was myrrh, an embalming ointment for burial?  Some gift to give a newborn baby! It is not a meaningless detail that Mary binds her Son with what would appear to us to be mummy-wrappings when she lays Him in the manger.  The impending death of this Infant when He grows to be a man is the only right basis of any true Christmas joy.  Any "spirit of Christmas" that bids us to find our joy in something other than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is another spirit from some other source than the Triune God.

 The intriguing thing about St. Stephen is that he shows himself most filled with joy and the Holy Spirit upon the brink of his hapless death.  Stephen's eyes shone forth pure joy.  The Reading said that Stephen's face had the appearance of the face of an angel.  And yet that face was about to be shattered beyond all recognition by rocks hard flung from hateful hands.  How odd of God to teach us that our great joy, the joy of Christmas, lies in death–in Christ's death for us, and in our own death when we depart in order to be with Christ, which is a far, far better thing than this life under the power of the curse.  Death means the final destruction of our old Adam as we await in hope the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

 The Apostle Paul, in his former life as Saul the Pharisee, willfully participated in the stoning of Stephen.  After he was converted, though, the repentant Paul realized what genuine blessing Stephen had enjoyed in, with, and through his cruel martyrdom.  Paul would go on to write how he, too, longed to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, how he yearned also to share in Christ's sufferings and to fill up in his own body what was yet lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of the Church.  Paul desired to become like Christ in His death so that He might be perfectly conformed to the image of God's Son.  "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."  This was the confession of Paul, for whom to live was Christ and to die was gain.

 Now all this talk about the "joy of death" probably sounds more than a little wacky and morbid to you; it certainly does not appeal to my own comfort-loving flesh.  To understand why the Apostle Paul teaches us that our death in Christ is something devoutly to wish for, we must recall all that he witnessed in the martyrdom of Stephen and would later fully grasp after his conversion.  Paul looked at Stephen, who was standing before the whole hostile council of the Jews under accusation of blasphemy, and saw that Stephen's face was like the face of an angel.  Stephen's face was like the face of an angel because Stephen was looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who had endured the cross and had been raised to the right hand of God the Father.  Stephen's face reflected the One whom Stephen beheld and confessed, the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.  Jesus Himself had said that those deemed worthy to attain to the age to come would be sons of God and the equals of angels.  And so, on the verge of his martyr's departure from human life, Stephen's divine destiny in Christ became manifest in his angelic face.

 You see, ultimately we will reflect that which we fix upon in the gaze of our hearts.  We show forth in our lives that which we love and trust in above all things, that which we look to before anything else.  Sad to say, very often that which we are beholding and attending to and looking at is not our Lord Jesus Christ.  No, it is almost always ourselves that we are in some way looking at, attending to, and incessantly beholding.  Our fallen nature, in which dwells no good thing, is a sin-tainted humanity all turned in on itself, fundamentally obsessed with itself.  The most blatant expression of our self-orientation is the ungodly pride we hold in our hearts concerning our own attributes or our own accomplishments.  Our physical strength or beauty, our mental capacity or agility, our professional position or financial income, the esteem we enjoy among people, the quality of our family or friends, and a multitude of other temporal things are too often what we look to for security, as if these passing shadows were worthy of our ultimate concern!  Which of these things do we have that we did not first receive from our gracious God, quite apart from any merit or worthiness in us?  And why do we attend to these gifts of God as if they were of our own making and somehow constitute what we are?
 
 On the other hand, our obsessive self-regard may focus upon our own lacking, failures, and sins.  This is but the flip side of the same old idolatry.  For we still remain much more concerned with ourselves than with God–the focus is still inward, now simply with what seems missing in us and wrong with us rather than with what we think we have right.  But all of our looking unto ourselves, whether with joyous rapture or with sorrowful sadness, is nothing but vanity.  The Old Adam in us is absolutely fascinated by our own beauty or ugliness of body and soul.  We are completely taken with admiration or despair over our words or our works.

 But through St. Stephen God calls us today to turn away from ourselves and to fix our eyes on  Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  In His great love He has brought us to faith by the Word of the Gospel.  And in His great love He has done all that is necessary to save us, as He said from the cross, "It is finished."  The words that Stephen spoke were a reflection of Jesus' own words as He died, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  To us who look to Christ in faith, God forgives us and no longer holds our sins against us.  Rather, we poor sinners are given to behold the glorious face of God Himself in our risen Lord Jesus Christ. We are given to reflect what we behold by faith, even as the barren moon reflects the blazing light of the sun.  We become brilliant with a righteousness that is not our own, a righteousness that is ours by virtue of our union with Christ the Righteous One.

 By the working of the Holy Spirit, we, like St. Stephen, look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  For the joy that we set before Him at the prospect of our salvation, Christ endured the cross and despised its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of the God to represent us to the Father and to speak in our behalf.  When we hear in faith Christ's word of absolution, we look unto Jesus.  When we come in faith to receive Christ's body and blood for our forgiveness, we look unto Jesus.  When we attend to Christ's Word as it is preached and taught and read, as it sung in the hymns and prayed in the liturgy, we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

 And as we do that, the Bible teaches that we are being transfigured into the likeness of Christ.  St. Paul writes in II Corinthians, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory."  Even though our mortal bodies are right now in the process of dissolution and death, the new nature created in Christ Jesus within us is welling up and being renewed even now by the Word of Christ's Gospel.  It is written in I John, "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."  Beholding Christ makes us like Him.  On the Last Day our transfiguration will be brought to its fulfillment, and we shall perfectly reflect and share in Christ's resurrection majesty.  In fact, II Peter 1 states that through our Lord Jesus Christ and His precious promises, we actually become partakers of the divine nature.  Which brings us right back to Christmas.  God the Son became one with man so that we might become one with God.

 Let us, then, turn away from our obsession with ourselves and earthly things.  Let us lift up our eyes so that they gaze upon Christ alone and the high calling we have in Him.  For Christ is our new and true self, to whom we are joined by His holy birth and our baptism into His body.  Only when we relinquish ourselves in faith to Christ do we become what we were created to be, little icons of Jesus, who is the Great Icon of God the Father.  May God enable us, just as He enabled St. Stephen, to look heavenward and to long for Christ's coming and the time when He will change our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself.  To this Jesus with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all glory and honor, now and forever.  Amen.

(Much of the above is adapted from a sermon by the Rev. Stephen Wiest)