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00:00:22Let us pray.
00:00:50Let us pray.
00:00:54And through your mercy be introduced as an adopted son into the heavenly inheritance.
00:01:01Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ, who in the midst of reproach and injury bore your cross
00:01:07with excessive pain on your sacred and cut shoulders.
00:01:13Wearied and panting for breath, you toiled exceedingly under its heavy weight.
00:01:19Give me grace to take hold of the cross of self-denial with ardent devotion and to imitate with the
00:01:25most fervent of charity the example of your virtues and to follow you in humility even unto death.
00:01:38Let us pray.
00:02:10Let us pray.
00:02:13Let us pray.
00:02:46Let us pray.
00:02:55Let us pray.
00:02:58Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ, who was stripped before the gaze of all people on Mount
00:03:04Calvary and the soreness of your wounds being increased by the removal of your clothing.
00:03:10Let us pray.
00:03:18Let us pray.
00:03:23Let us pray.
00:03:30Let us pray.
00:03:36Let us pray.
00:03:42Let us pray.
00:03:45praise honour and glory be to you o christ who gave himself up to be extended naked upon the wood
00:03:53of the cross and the joints of your most holy limbs to be wrenched apart most cruelly nailed and fastened
00:04:00thereto
00:04:02then for my sake you suffered your most delicate hands and feet to be most deeply wounded grant o lord
00:04:12that i might remember with a faithful and grateful heart this your unspeakable charity when you did of your own
00:04:21accord stretch out your hands to be bored and your feet to be pierced through
00:04:26o lord enlarge and extend my heart by perfect love of you pierce it and fix it to yourself with
00:04:34the nail of your sweetest love and shut up within yourself alone all my senses all my thoughts and all
00:04:42my affections
00:04:44amen
00:04:48o lord open our lips and our mouths shall sing your praise
00:04:59o be joyful in the lord
00:05:03o be joyful in the lord
00:05:06sun the lord
00:05:08earth
00:05:08Joan have covered
00:05:11on his servants with a whole
00:05:16he is sure that the lord
00:05:19he is gone
00:05:22he Quarterly
00:05:51CHOIR SINGS
00:06:21CHOIR SINGS
00:06:41CHOIR SINGS
00:06:42CHOIR SINGS
00:06:51CHOIR SINGS
00:06:56Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, Let them all, so that they till we be fallen.
00:07:13Like as the smoke vanishes, so shall thou drive them away.
00:07:24And like as the smoke vanishes, so shall thou drive them away.
00:07:39But let the righteous be glad, and rejoice before God.
00:07:47Let them all so be merry and joyful.
00:07:55Who sing unto God, and sing praises unto his name.
00:08:06He is the Father of the Fathers.
00:08:07Magnify him as lighteth among the heavens, as it were upon a force.
00:08:15Praise him in his name now, and rejoice before him.
00:08:28He is the Father of the Fathers.
00:08:33He is the Father of the Fathers.
00:08:35And in them the third cross of our wills.
00:08:41He will God in his holy habitation.
00:08:50He is the Lord, and if he is the Father of the Fathers.
00:08:54He will Lord of the Fathers, or be a God who will Lord halten in ashes.
00:09:07He is the Father that will help to His kingdom in a storm.
00:09:15He is the Father of the Fathers.
00:09:16For God, when the wench stood before the people, when the wench went through the wilderness,
00:09:31he has stood at the heavens, not at the presence of God.
00:09:39If I must die in my heart so much more, that the presence of God who is the God of
00:09:49Israel.
00:09:53Our Lord sent us the gracious prayer of thy patience,
00:10:02and with preciousness when it was weak.
00:10:10Thy congregation shed well again,
00:10:17for thou, O God, hast thought thy goodness prepared for the poor.
00:10:27The Lord gave the word,
00:10:32great was the company of the creatures.
00:10:40Kings with their armies with fear and were discomfited,
00:10:48and bailed on the mountain divided the storm.
00:10:58For ye have liened among the pots,
00:11:04yet shall he be as the wings of the dove,
00:11:11that is covered with silver wings,
00:11:16and of feathers like gold.
00:11:22When the Almighty scattered kings for their sake,
00:11:29when the mayors bright were strong in summer,
00:11:39shall he be seen只 they were 200 years,
00:11:40As the pale of patience,
00:11:42saw his voltage,
00:11:46he will guide him as the pale of� impressions,
00:11:54while of his gloryehives,
00:11:59this is glorious,
00:12:01in the withold Corinthians —
00:12:07Praise the Lord, may the Christ finish forever
00:12:15The giants of God of twenty thousand, even thousands of angels
00:12:25That the Lord is among them as in the one in place of silence
00:12:35The Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord
00:12:40Thou hast left your team in your team
00:12:45And received gifts for men
00:12:51May he end for their enemies
00:12:56That the Lord God might dwell among them
00:13:04Praise be thy Lord, say
00:13:08He is the God, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord
00:13:13And for his enemies upon us
00:13:19He is the God, even the God of the Lord
00:13:25Love and salvation
00:13:29God is the Lord by whom we have painted
00:13:36God shall hold the head of his enemies
00:13:42But the heaven is come of such a war as
00:13:48Nowhere on sin in his enemies
00:13:53My Lord has said
00:13:56I will bring thy people again as I did from creation
00:14:05My Lord will I bring them again as I did sometime
00:14:11From the kingdom of the sea
00:14:16As my first baby did in the blood of thy enemies
00:14:23And that the soul of thy heart may be breath for the same
00:14:33It is what sea, O Lord, follow your heart
00:14:41Lambda my blood and king
00:14:44Who has been in the sanctuary
00:14:49I will sing as you were before
00:15:21CHOIR SINGS
00:15:49CHOIR SINGS
00:16:05CHOIR SINGS
00:16:07CHOIR SINGS
00:16:40CHOIR SINGS
00:17:06CHOIR SINGS
00:17:37CHOIR SINGS
00:18:06CHOIR SINGS
00:18:32CHOIR SINGS
00:18:39CHOIR SINGS
00:18:47CHOIR SINGS
00:18:48CHOIR SINGS
00:19:03CHOIR SINGS
00:19:05CHOIR SINGS
00:19:39CHOIR SINGS
00:19:40CHOIR SINGS
00:19:42CHOIR SINGS
00:19:47CHOIR SINGS
00:19:49CHOIR SINGS
00:19:49CHOIR SINGS
00:19:56CHOIR SINGS
00:20:07CHOIR SINGS
00:20:10CHOIR SINGS
00:20:12CHOIR SINGS
00:20:12Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has happened to him and
00:20:18so they
00:20:19made an idol in the form of a calf brought a sacrifice to the idol and began rejoicing in
00:20:25the works of their hands but God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the
00:20:32host
00:20:32of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets it was not to me that you offered
00:20:39slain
00:20:39animals and sacrifices 40 years in the wilderness was it house of Israel but you took along with you
00:20:48the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan the images you made to worship but I will
00:20:56deport you beyond Babylon our ancestors had the test tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness
00:21:06just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had been shown
00:21:14our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations
00:21:21that God had driven out before our ancestors until the time of David he found favor with God and asked
00:21:30that he could find the dwelling place for the house of Jacob but Solomon built the house for him and
00:21:38yet
00:21:38the most high does not live in houses made by human hands for as the prophet says heaven is my
00:21:45throne and
00:21:46earth is the footstool for my feet what kind of house will you build for me says the lord or
00:21:53what is my
00:21:53resting place did my hand not make all these things you stubborn people with uncircumcised hearts and ears
00:22:03you are always resisting the holy spirit like your ancestors which of the prophets did your ancestors not
00:22:11persecute they killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the righteous one whose betrayers and murderers
00:22:19you in turn have now become you received the law by decrees given by angels but you did not obey
00:22:27it
00:22:29when they heard these things they became furious and ground their teeth at him but stephen being full
00:22:37of the holy spirit looked intently toward heaven and saw the glory of god with jesus standing at his right
00:22:44hand look he said i see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of
00:22:51god
00:22:53but they covered their ears shouting out with a loud voice and rushed at him with one intent
00:23:00when they had driven him out of the city they began to stone him and the witnesses laid their cloaks
00:23:07at
00:23:07feet of a young man named saul they continued to stone stephen while he prayed lord jesus receive my spirit
00:23:18then he fell to his knees and cried out with a loud voice lord do not hold this sin against
00:23:25them
00:23:27saying this he died saul agreed completely with killing him now on that day a great persecution began against the
00:23:38church
00:23:38in jerusalem and all except the apostles were forced to scatter throughout the regions of judea and samaria
00:23:47some devoured men buried steven and made loud lamentation over him but saul meanwhile was trying to destroy the church
00:23:57entering one house after another dragging off both men and women and putting them in prison
00:24:04now those who had been forced to scatter went around proclaiming the good news of the word
00:24:12this is the word of the lord thanks be to god
00:24:27this witness of stephen struck the keynote of christian freedom tracing out the fair proportions of the church
00:24:34while the actual martyrdom taught men that christianity was not only the force which was to triumph
00:24:41but the power in which they were to suffer and bear and die stephen's career was a type of all
00:24:50martyr lives and embraces every possible development through which christ's church and his servants have
00:24:57afterwards had to pass obscurity fame activity and finally death fixing high the standard for all to follow
00:25:11we have in this passage today telling the story of that martyrdom a vast number of topics
00:25:18which have formed the subject matter of christian thought since apostolic times
00:25:24we have already remarked that the earliest quotation from the acts of the apostles
00:25:29connects itself with this scene of stephen's martyrdom
00:25:34let us see how this came about
00:25:38140 years after stephen's death at the end of the second century
00:25:44the churches of vienne and lyon in france were sending an account of the terrible sufferings through
00:25:51which they had passed during a similar sudden outburst of the celtic pagans of that district
00:25:58against the christians
00:26:01the aging pophenius a man whose life and ministry touched upon the apostolic age was put to death
00:26:08suffering violence very similar to that which saint stephen had been subjected before for we are told
00:26:16expressly by the historian eusebius that the mob in its violence throng through missiles at him
00:26:26those at a distance whosoever and whatsoever they had everyone hurled at him
00:26:33thinking it would be a great sin if they fell short in wanton abuse of him
00:26:41the church of lyon according to the loving usage of those early times
00:26:46sent an account of their troubles to the brethren in asia and phrygia
00:26:52that they might read it at the celebration of the eucharist for their own comfort and edification
00:26:59they entered into great details showing how wonderfully the power of god's grace had been
00:27:04shown even in the weakest people sustaining their courage and enabling them to witness
00:27:12the letter then goes on to note the marvelous
00:27:18humility of the sufferers they would not allow anyone to call them masters for that name was reserved
00:27:25solely for jesus christ the true and faithful martyr and to those who had been made perfect through
00:27:32death there too their charity was wonderful and the epistle referring to this very incident tells how
00:27:40they prayed like stephen that perfect martyr lord do not hold this sin against them
00:27:49the memory of saint stephen served to ennoble the earliest gallic masters and it has ever since
00:27:57been bound up with the dearest feelings of christians the arrangements of the calendar with which we are all
00:28:04so familiar are merely an expression of the same feeling as recorded in that second century document
00:28:12christmas day and saint stephen's day are bonded together the commemoration of christ's birth
00:28:19is joined with the martyrdom of saint stephen because of a certain spiritual instinct christmas day records the
00:28:29fact of the incarnation and then we have according to the order of the calendar three holy days
00:28:35saint stephen's and john's and the holy innocents which follow one another in immediate succession
00:28:45many will remember the explanation of an old commenter on the calendar and liturgy
00:28:53which makes very effective use in hymns of the christian year set apart for those days
00:29:00there are three classes of master one in will and deed like stephen this is the highest class and
00:29:07therefore he has a place next to christ
00:29:12another in will but not indeed like saint john the divine who was ready to follow his master into death
00:29:19but did not this is the second rank and therefore his place comes next to that of saint stephen
00:29:26and finally we come to the holy innocence the babes of bethlehem
00:29:31masters indeed but not in will and therefore in third position
00:29:38the western church and especially the church in northern europe has always had a love for the christmas
00:29:46season with its cheerful fires its social engagement its family memories
00:29:52as a result as it was in the church of the second century so it is with ourselves
00:29:59none has a higher or dearer place in memory doubtless largely owing to the conjunction
00:30:06than the great proto-martyr the first martyr
00:30:10men have delighted to trace spiritual analogies and relations between stephen and jesus
00:30:18fanciful perhaps some of them might be but they are still devout fancies edifying fancies fancies
00:30:26fancies which strengthen and deepen the divine life in the soul
00:30:31thus they have noted that christmas day and stephen saint stephen's day are both natal days
00:30:40this is indeed one of the many traces of the early usage which the church has preserved like a fly
00:30:47fixed
00:30:48in amber petrified in the midst of her liturgical use she has a catalogue of masters which the ordinary lay
00:30:57person hardly ever sees or uses but which is in daily use amongst clergy and the various ecclesiastical
00:31:06communities connected with our church it is in the latin tongue and is called the martyrologium romanum
00:31:16giving the names of the saints whose memories are celebrated upon each day throughout the year
00:31:22and every such day is duly styled either the natal or birthday of the saint to whom it is appropriated
00:31:32the church retains this beautiful custom which is reviewed the death day of a saint as his
00:31:39birthday into the true life and rejoiced in it accordingly
00:31:47that life was not in the conception of the early believers a life of ghosts and shadows it was the
00:31:54life of reality
00:31:55because it was the life of eternity and therefore the early christian lived for it longed for it
00:32:02and counted their entrance upon it their true birthday
00:32:08the church brought the two birthdays of christ and stephen into their closest union
00:32:13and men came to see in it a beautiful reason for the union teaching that christ was born into the
00:32:20lower world
00:32:21in order that stephen might be born into the heavenly world the whole of that dreadful scene enacted at jerusalem
00:32:29was transformed by the power of that beautiful immaculate conception
00:32:37stephen's death was no longer a brutal murder faith no longer saw the rage the violence the crushed body
00:32:45the mangled and outraged humanity the birthday of jesus christ the incarnation of the master
00:32:53transfigured the death scene of the servant for the shame and suffering were changed into peace and glory
00:33:01the shouts and screams of rage of the mob became angelic voices and the missiles used by them were
00:33:09fashioned into the messengers of the most high leading the faithful martyr through into a new birth into his
00:33:17eternal rest and glory it would be good for the church at large if she could rise to this early
00:33:25concept
00:33:25more frequently than she usually does men then did not trouble themselves about questions of assurance
00:33:35or of their christian consciousness these topics and ideas are begotten at a lower level and find sustenance
00:33:43in a different region men like stephen and those early martyrs of vienne and lyon lived in another world
00:33:52it was the world of all their interests of all their passionate desires of their sense of reality they lived
00:33:59to the supernatural life they did not trouble themselves with questions about that life
00:34:05any more than a man in sound physical health and spirit dares to discuss topics relating to the
00:34:12constitution of the life he enjoys or to debate such useless questions as to how do i know i exist
00:34:20at all
00:34:23christians then knew and felt they lived in god and that was merely enough for them
00:34:31we have however wandered far enough afield let us retrace our steps and seek to discover more
00:34:38in detail the instruction for the life of future ages given to us in this first scene of martyrdom
00:34:49we have before us the cause of the sudden outburst against stephen for it was an outburst a commotion
00:34:58not a legal execution by any means
00:35:03we have already considered the circumstances which led the sanhedrin to permit the mob to take their own
00:35:09course and even to give assistance to them in doing so pilot had departed the imperial throne too was
00:35:19vacant in the spring or early summer of the year 37 there was therefore an interregnum when the bonds of
00:35:27authority were at least relaxed during which time the jews took leave to do as they pleased trusting that
00:35:36when the bonds were again drawn tight the misdeeds of the past and any irregularities committed
00:35:43would be forgotten and forgiven hence we see the riot in which stephen lost his life
00:35:52but what roused these listeners the members of the sanhedrin elders priests and people alike to such
00:36:00madness they had listened to him patiently enough just as afterwards they heard his successor paul
00:36:09until he spoke of the wider spiritual hope paul as his speech is reported in chapter 22
00:36:18was listened until he spoke of being sent to the gentiles stephen was listened to until he spoke of the
00:36:27free universal spiritual nature of divine worship being tied to no place bounded by no locality
00:36:38at which point the sanhedrin became impatient and stephen recognizing with all of an orator's instinct
00:36:46and tact that his opportunity was closing quickly changes his note charging home upon his hearers the same
00:36:55spirit of criminal resistance to the leading leadings of the most high as their fathers had shown to the
00:37:02prophets before the older jews had ever resisted the holy spirit as he displayed his teaching and opened
00:37:10up his purposes under the old dispensation his descendants now followed their example in withstanding the
00:37:18same this divine spirit shown in that of the holy one of whom they had lately been the betrayers and
00:37:26murderers
00:37:29it is scarcely therefore any wonder that such language would be the occasion of his death
00:37:35how exactly he follows the example of our savior stephen used strong language and so did jesus
00:37:44it has even been urged of later years that our lord deliberately rose to the jews to action
00:37:50and hastened his end by the use of denunciation against the ruling classes that we read in the 23rd
00:37:57chapter of saint matthew's gospel there is however a great lesson of eternal significance
00:38:05that we may derive from the example of saint stephen as well as that of our lord
00:38:11there are times when strong language is both useful and essential christ's ordinary ministry was gentle
00:38:20persuasive and mild he did not not strive nor cry neither did any man hear his voice in the streets
00:38:31but there came a time persuasion having failed in its purpose the language of denunciation took its place
00:38:40and helped to work out in a way the pharisees little expected the final triumph of truth
00:38:48stephen likewise was skillful and gentle in his speech
00:38:53his words must at first have sounded strangely flattering to their prejudices coming from one who
00:39:00was after all accused as being a traitor to his race and religion
00:39:07yet when these gentle words failed stern denunciation the plainest and keenest of phrases stiff-necked and
00:39:16uncircumcised in ears and heart betrayers and murderers of the righteous one proved that the
00:39:24christian martyr then and christian martyrs and witnesses of every age are not debarred under certain
00:39:31circumstances from the use of such weapons but it can be hard to know when the proper time has come
00:39:38for their employment the object of every true servant and witness of christ will be to recommend the truth
00:39:46as effectively as possible and to win for it acceptance
00:39:53some people seem to invert this course and think it unworthy of a true follower of christ to seek to
00:39:59present his message in an attractive format
00:40:04they regard every human art and every human motive or principle as so thoroughly bad that
00:40:10men should disregard and despise them human eloquence or motives of policy and prudence they utterly reject
00:40:21these principles lead some of them even further they reject the assistance which art music and literature
00:40:28can lend to the cause of god and the result is that men especially as they grow in culture and
00:40:35civilization are estranged from these messages of everlasting peace some people with a hard and
00:40:44maybe brutal narrow concept of christian and christianity are very responsible for the alienation of the young
00:40:53and thoughtful from the side of religion as a result of the misconceptions they create god has made the
00:41:02doctrines of the cross repugnant to the corrupt natural feelings of man but it is not for us to make
00:41:08them repugnant to those good natural principles as well which the holy father has implanted in human nature
00:41:16and which are an echo of his own divine self in the sanctuary of our hearts it is a real
00:41:26breach of charity when
00:41:28men refuse to deal tenderly with each other in such matters and will not seek as saint stephen and the
00:41:35apostles did to commend god's cause with all human skill enlisting every good or indifferent human motive
00:41:45had saint stephen thought it his duty to act as some unwise people do today we would never have
00:41:52had his immortal discourse as a model for faithful and skillful preaching we would merely have had the
00:42:00final concluding words of vigorous denunciation at the same time the presence of these stern words proves
00:42:08that there is a place for such strong language in the work of christian ministry there is a time and
00:42:16place for all things even the use of strong language the true teacher will seek to avoid ever giving
00:42:23unnecessary offense but a sharp and stern rebuke may be an absolutely essential duty of charity when prejudice and
00:42:34bigotry and party spirit choke the avenues of the soul hindering the progress of truth
00:42:42in this way we hear john the baptist call men a generation of vipers and paul style elemas a child
00:42:51of the devil and christ designated the religious world of his day as hypocrites and when occasion calls
00:43:00we too should not hesitate to brand foul things in plain names in order that men might be summoned from
00:43:09their sleep that deadly torpor into which sin threatens to fling them the use of strong language by
00:43:17saint stephen had its effect on his listeners they were sawn and sunder in their hearts they gnashed
00:43:25their teeth upon the matter his words stirred them up to some kind of action
00:43:32the gospel has after all a double action it operate possesses a two-fold force
00:43:39the two-edged sword indeed the faithful teaching of its cannot ever be in vain to some it will be
00:43:49the
00:43:49savior of life unto life and to others the savior of death unto death opposition may indeed be wisely
00:43:58or unwisely even provoked it may be the proof to us of nothing else save our own willfulness our own
00:44:07folly or imprudence but if true christian wisdom is used and the laws of christian charity fully
00:44:14observed then the spirit of opposition and the violence of rage and persecution prove nothing else
00:44:22to the sufferers than that god's word is working out his purpose and bringing forth fruit even though it
00:44:30be unto destruction again the locality the circumstance and the surroundings of stephen's martyrdom deserve
00:44:41notice the place of his execution is pointed out by christian tradition and that tradition is supported by
00:44:48the witness of jewish custom and of jewish writings he was tried in the temple precincts or certainly within
00:44:56sight of it as is manifest from the word of the witnesses before the council he doesn't stop speaking
00:45:04against this holy place we've heard him say that this jesus of nazareth will destroy this place
00:45:12the mob then rushed upon him under ordinary circumstances the roman garrison stave stationed in the
00:45:20neighboring town of antonia which overlooked the temple would have seen the riot and hastened to
00:45:27intervene as they did many years later when saint paul's life was threatened by a similar outburst
00:45:36however as we have already noted the political circumstances of the time were somewhat different
00:45:42roman authority was merely nominal in jerusalem
00:45:47people living at great centers such as rome once was or london is now perhaps have no idea how largely
00:45:55dependent distant colonies or outlying districts like judea are upon the personal authority of individual
00:46:04lives in the case of a ruler's death the action of the officials and of the army becomes necessarily slow
00:46:12and hesitant it loses that backbone of immediate energy decision and vigor which a living personal
00:46:20authority imparts the decrease of the roman emperor synchronizing as it did with the recall of pilot must
00:46:30surely have paralyzed the action of the local officer left holding the fort of antonia who unaware what turn
00:46:39events might take doubtless thought he was safe in restraining himself to the guardianship and
00:46:46protection of purely roman and not just civil interests
00:47:01the scene of stephen's murder is sometimes located in the valley of jehoshaphat
00:47:06near the kedron brook under the shadow of olivet and against the garden of gethsemane
00:47:14to that spot the gate of jerusalem called the gates of saint stephen now leads another tradition assigns the
00:47:22open country northeast of jerusalem on the road to damascus and samaria as the place consecrated by the
00:47:30first death suffered for christ it is however according to the usual practice of holy scripture to leave
00:47:38this place undecided or rather completely disregarded and overlooked for the scriptures were not written
00:47:46to celebrate men or places things temporary or transient in themselves that have no direct bearing on the
00:47:54spiritual life the scriptures were written for the purpose of setting forth the example of devotion
00:48:01love and sanctity presented by its heroes therefore it shrouds all such scenes as that of stephen's martyrdom
00:48:10in the thickest darkness there is as little as possible of what is merely local detailed and particular
00:48:18about the scriptures they rise into the abstract and the general as much as is consistent with being
00:48:26a historical narrative perhaps no spot in the world exhibits more evident and more abundant proof of this
00:48:35divine wisdom embodied in the scriptures scriptures than this same city of jerusalem as we now find it
00:48:42what locality could be more dear to christian memory or more closely allied with christian hope than the
00:48:49holy places as they are emphatically called the church of the holy sepulchre and its surroundings
00:48:57and yet the contending struggle of roman greek armenian muslim have made the whole subject to reproach
00:49:06and disgrace are not an honor to the christian name showing how easily strife and politics earthly passions
00:49:16enter in and usurp the ground which is normally set apart for the honor of the spiritual
00:49:24it is very hard to keep the spirit of the world out of the most sacred seasons or the holiest
00:49:32localities
00:49:38of the world out of the world out of the world out of the world out of the world out
00:49:39of the world
00:49:39stephen is hurried by the mob to this spot outside the holy city wherever it might exactly be
00:49:46and then they proceeded in regular judicial style so far as their fury would allow them
00:49:52the great jock to dr john lightfoot in his work or i break i dealing with this very passage notes
00:50:01how
00:50:01we may trace it in the leading ideas and practices of its jewish legal process the sanhedrin and their
00:50:10supporters dragged saint stephen out of the city because it was laid down in the law in leviticus 24
00:50:18take him from the camp the jews still retained vivid memories of their early history
00:50:26just as students as students today of sociology and ethnology still recognize in our own practices
00:50:33the traces of ancient prehistoric uses reminiscences of a time millennia distant from us today when our
00:50:42ancestors lived in a savage land widely separated from our modern home so too did the jews still recognize
00:50:51the nomadic state as their original condition and even in the days of our savior looked upon jerusalem
00:50:59as the encampment of israel outside of which the blasphemer should be taken to be stoned
00:51:10dr lightfoot then goes on to give the elaborate ceremony used to ensure a fair trial
00:51:17and the reconsideration of any evidence which might turn up at the last moment
00:51:23a few of the rules appointed for such occasions are well worth noting
00:51:29as showing the minute care with which the whole jewish order of execution was officially regulated
00:51:39there shall stand one at the door of the sun hedrin having a handkerchief in his hand and a horse
00:51:44at
00:51:45such distance as it was only visible within sight if anyone therefore say i have something to offer on
00:51:52behalf of the condemned person he waves his handkerchief and the horseman rides and calls the people they if the
00:52:01man himself said i have something to offer in my own defense they bring him back four or five five
00:52:08times
00:52:08one after another if he'd be a thing of any moment he has to say
00:52:15i doubt he adds that they dealt so gently with the innocent steven
00:52:23lightfoot describes how a crier preceded the doom the man proclaiming his crime until the place of
00:52:30execution was reached whereupon he was stripped of his clothes two witnesses threw him violently down
00:52:37from a height of 12 feet flinging upon him two large stones
00:52:45the man should be struck by one witness in the stomach by the other upon the heart whereupon if
00:52:52the death did not at once ensue the multitude would lend their assistance
00:52:59after death the body would be suspended on a tree
00:53:04it will be evident from this outline of lightfoot's more prolonged and detailed statement
00:53:10that the leading ideas of jewish practice were retained in saint stephen's case but as to the
00:53:16execution it was much more an act of the people as of the sanhedrin it was carried out hurriedly passionately
00:53:24and haphazardly this will account for some of the details we read we usually picture
00:53:32ourselves as saint stephen perishing beneath the deadly hail of missiles rain down upon him by an
00:53:39infuriating mob before whom he is running just as men are still maimed or killed in street riots
00:53:51and we might wonder therefore how saint stephen might have found the time to kneel down
00:53:56and commend his spirit to christ or to pray his last prayer of divine charity and forgiveness under these
00:54:04imagined circumstances
00:54:08the jews however no matter how passionate and enraged they would have feared to incur the guilt of murder
00:54:16had they acted in this rough and ready method
00:54:20the witnesses must first strike their blows and thus take upon themselves the responsibility for the
00:54:27blood about to be shed if it were to turn out to be innocent the culprits too were urged to
00:54:35confess
00:54:35their sin to god before they died stephen may well have taken advantage of this well-known form to kneel
00:54:44down and
00:54:44offer up his parting prayers which displaying his steadfast faith in jesus only stirred up afresh
00:54:52the wrath of his adversaries who upon which proceeded to the last extremities
00:55:02stephen's death was a type of the vast majority of future martyrdoms in this among other respects
00:55:10it was a death suffered for christ just as christ's own death was suffered for the world at large
00:55:17and that under the forms of law and clothed with its outward dignity christianity proclaims the dignity of
00:55:24law and order supporting it teaching that the magistrate is the minister of god and that he does a divinely
00:55:32appointed work
00:55:34but christianity does not proclaim the infallibility of human law or indeed of the human magistrate
00:55:42christianity does not teach that any human law or human magistrate can dictate to the individual
00:55:48conscience or intrude itself into the inner temple of the soul christianity has indeed by long and bitter
00:55:57in experience taught the contrary and vindicated the rights of a free conscience by patiently suffering
00:56:05all that could be done against it by the powers of the world assuming the forms and using the powers
00:56:12of law
00:56:15christians i say have taught the dignity of law and order and yet they have not hesitated to resist and
00:56:22overturn bad laws not however so much by active opposition as by the patient suffering of all
00:56:31fiendish cruelty and lust could devise against the followers of the cross just as it was under the forms
00:56:39of law that our savior died and stephen was executed and peter and paul passed on to their rest
00:56:47so it was under the same forms of law that the primitive church passed through those ten great persecutions
00:56:54which terminated by seeking her on the throne of the caesars law is a good thing the absence of law
00:57:02is chaos
00:57:04the presence of law even though it be a bad law is surely better than no law but the individual
00:57:13christian
00:57:14conscience is higher than any human law it should yield obedience in things lawful and indifferent
00:57:20but in things clearly sinful the christian conscience will honor the majesty of law by refusing obedience
00:57:27and then by suffering patiently and lovingly as stephen did the penalty attached to conscientious disobedience
00:57:40so let us now briefly notice the various points of interest some of them of deep doctrinal importance
00:57:47which gather around saint stephen's death
00:57:57we are told for instance that the martyr seeing his last hour approaching
00:58:02looked up into heaven and saw the glory of god with jesus standing to the right of god
00:58:10surely critics must have been solely in want of objections to the historical truth of the narrative
00:58:16when they raised the point that stephen could not have looked up to heaven because he was in a covered
00:58:21chamber and could not have seen through the roof
00:58:26this is simply a carping objection and the expression used about saint stephen is quite in keeping with the
00:58:33common usage of scripture in the 17th chapter of saint john in the first one
00:58:39we read of the lord lifting up his eyes to heaven praying his great eucharistic prayer on behalf of his
00:58:48apostles
00:58:50he lifted up his eyes to heaven even though he was in the upper chamber at that time
00:58:58the scriptural idea of heaven is not that of the small child a region placed far away above the bright
00:59:06blue sky
00:59:08beyond the distant stars but rather that of a spiritual world shrouded from us for the present by the veil
00:59:17of matter
00:59:19and yet so thinly separated that a moment ray roll away the temporary covering and disclose the world of realities
00:59:27which lies behind
00:59:30such has been the concept of the deepest minds and the profoundest teaching
00:59:36saint stephen did not need a keen vision and an open space and a cloudless sky free of smoke pollution
00:59:45as
00:59:45this objection imagines had saint stephen been in the dungeon and his eyes even blind the spiritual vision may
00:59:54well still have been granted and the consolation and strength afforded which in its greek shape a cop
01:00:01apocalypse been simply an unveiling a rolling away of something that was flimsy temporary and transient
01:00:10that's a more abiding and nobler thing may be seen the roof the pillars the solid structure of the temple
01:00:18the priests and the levites the priests and the levites the guards and the listeners the mob
01:00:23all were part of the veil of matter which was suddenly rolled away from saint stephen's view
01:00:30in order that he may receive as the masters of every age have received that special assistance which
01:00:38the king of masters reserves for that supreme hour of man's need
01:00:45the vision of our lord granted at this moment has its own teaching for us
01:00:51we are apt to conjure up thoughts of the sufferings of the martyrs to picture to ourselves a stephen
01:00:58perishing under a shower of stones saint ignatius of antioch flung to the beasts polycarp suffering at the
01:01:06stake the victims of pagan cruelty dying under 10 000 forms of diabolical cruelty subsequently invented
01:01:17and then we might ask ourselves quite reasonably
01:01:21could we possibly have stood firm against such torture we forget the lesson of stephen's vision
01:01:32jesus did not draw back the veil until the last moment
01:01:38he did not grant the supporting vision until the need for it had come and then to stephen and to
01:01:45all
01:01:45the saints in the past and all the saints to come the master reveals himself in all his supporting and
01:01:52sustaining power reminding us in our humble daily spheres that it is our part to do our duty and to
01:02:01bear such burdens as the lord puts upon us now leaving to him cares and thoughts of the future content
01:02:09simply to trust that as our day is so shall our grace and our strength be stephen's vision has therefore
01:02:18a lesson of comfort and of guidance for those fretful souls who not content with the troubles and trials
01:02:26of the present and the helps which god imparts to bear upon them will go on and strive to ascertain
01:02:34how
01:02:34they are to bear imaginary dangers losses and temptations which may never come upon them
01:02:45then again we have the final words of stephen which are full of important meaning
01:02:51for they bear witness of the faith and doctrine of the apostolic church
01:02:57they stoned stephen calling upon the lord and saying lord jesus receive my spirit
01:03:04and a few moments later lord do not lay this sin against them this latter petition is clearly an echo
01:03:13of our lord's own prayer on the cross which has set a high standard of divine charity in the church
01:03:22the first martyr imitates the spirit and the language of the master and prays for his enemies of christ
01:03:29himself himself himself had done a few short years before while the other recorded petition lord jesus
01:03:38receive my spirit is an echo likewise of our lord when he said father into your hands i commend my
01:03:47spirit
01:03:49we may note especially about these prayers not only that they breathe the spirit of christ himself
01:03:55but they are addressed to christ and are so evidence to us of the doctrine and practice of the early
01:04:03church
01:04:04in the matter of our prayer to our lord
01:04:08saint stephen is the first distinct instance of such prayer but the more closely we investigate the book of
01:04:15acts and the epistles of saint paul the more clearly we shall find that all the early christians invoked
01:04:22christ christ prayed to him as one raised to a supernatural sphere and gifted him with divine power so that
01:04:30he
01:04:31was able to hear and answer their petitions
01:04:35saint stephen therefore prayed to christ and commended his soul to him with the same confidence that christ
01:04:41himself commended his soul to the father
01:04:46such a commendation was no chance expression no exclaiming of adoring love merely it was an outcome of the universal
01:04:55practice of the church which resorted to god through jesus prayer to jesus and the invocation of christ
01:05:04were notes of the earliest disciples
01:05:15the jews the jews in damascus are amazed at the converted souls preaching of christ saying is not this he
01:05:23the one in jerusalem who made havoc of them which called upon this name verse 21 and while again in
01:05:31romans 10 12 and 1 corinthians 1 2 we read the customs spread forth from jerusalem to the uttermost parts
01:05:40of the roman empire the passage to which we have just referred in the corinthians is decisive as to
01:05:50saint paul's teaching at a much later period than saint stephen's death when the church had a time to formulate
01:05:57its doctrine and to weigh its teaching yes even then he was just as clear on this point as stephen
01:06:04had
01:06:05been years before addressing his epistle to the church of god at corinth with all that called upon
01:06:11the name of the lord jesus christ in every place while again when we descend into the generation which came
01:06:19next after the apostolic age we find from pliny's letter written to trajan describing the practices
01:06:27and ideas of christians in bithynia in the earliest years of the second century it we find it was the
01:06:35same as in saint paul's day one of the leading features of this new sect as it appeared to an
01:06:42intelligent
01:06:43pagan was that they sang a hymn to christ as god
01:06:49saint stephen is the earliest instance of such worship directly addressed to the lord jesus christ
01:06:56a practice which has ever since been steadily maintained in every branch of his church
01:07:03it has been denied indeed in modern times that the anglican church in her formularies gives a
01:07:10sanction to this practice which is undoubtedly apostolical a reference however to the collect
01:07:17appointed for the memorial day of this blessed martyr would have been sufficient answer to that
01:07:22assertion as that collect contains a very beautiful prayer to christ beseeching assistance similar to that
01:07:30given to saint stephen amid the troubles of our own lives the whole structure of all liturgy and
01:07:39especially of the anglican protests against such an idea the book of common prayer is full of prayer to
01:07:49jesus christ though to deum the most wonderful prayer is in part a prayer addressed to him and so is
01:07:59the
01:07:59listening and so are the collects like the prayer of saint john chrysostom the collect for the first
01:08:05sunday in lent and the well-known prayer for the third sunday in advent o lord jesus christ who at
01:08:12your
01:08:12first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way
01:08:18the eastern church indeed addresses a great number of prayers directly to christ
01:08:23the western church basing itself on the promise of christ whatsoever you shall ask the father in my name
01:08:31he will give to you as ever directed the greater portion of her prayers to the father through the
01:08:37son but the few leading cases just mentioned cases which are common to the whole western church
01:08:45whether traditional reformed or whatever will prove that the west has also followed primitive custom
01:08:51in calling upon the name and invoking the help of the lord jesus himself
01:08:58then when stephen had given us these two lessons one of faith and one of practice when he had taught
01:09:05us
01:09:06the doctrine of christ's divinity and the worship due to him and the christ practice of christian charity
01:09:12the forgiving spirit which flows forth from it even to those who mistreat his servants brutally
01:09:21then stephen fell asleep the sacred writer using an expression for death indicative of the new aspect which
01:09:30death had assumed through christ which henceforth would give the name of cemeteries to the last resting places of all
01:09:39christian people
01:09:45the execution of saint stephen was followed by his funeral the bodies of those suspended as we have
01:09:53seen were also suspended on a tree but there was no opposition to their removal as later might be in
01:10:00the great persecutions
01:10:02the pagans knowing that christians preached the doctrine of the resurrection strove to prove the absurdity of
01:10:09this by reducing the body to ashes the christians however repeatedly proved that they entertained
01:10:17no narrow view on the point and did not expect the resurrection of the identical elements of which the earthly
01:10:24body was compute composed
01:10:28they took a broader noble view of saint paul's teaching in the 15th chapter of 1 corinthians
01:10:34regarding the natural body as merely the seed out of which the resurrection body would germinate
01:10:42this is shown from some of the stories told by ancient historians concerning the christians of the second
01:10:49century we have already considered the martyrs of vienne and lyon the pagans knew of their doctrine of the
01:11:00resurrection and sought to defeat it by scattering the ashes of the martyrs upon the waters of the room
01:11:07but the narrative of eusebius tells us how foolish this attempt was as if a man could in this way
01:11:14overcome
01:11:14god whose almighty power avails to raise the dead from the ashes scattered over the ocean as easily as the
01:11:23bones gathered into a sepulchre another story is handed down by a writer of antioch by the name of john
01:11:31malenas
01:11:32who lived around 600 a.d concerning five christian virtue virgins
01:11:40who had lived some 70 years earlier than the french martyrs that we have just considered
01:11:47these virgins fell victim to the persecution which raged at antioch at the time of the emperor trajan
01:11:55when saint ignatius perished they were burned to death for their constancy in the faith and then their
01:12:02ashes were mingled with brass which was made into basins for the public baths
01:12:11every person who used the basins became ill but then the emperor caused the basins to be formed
01:12:17into statues of the virgins in order as trajan said that it may be seen that i and not their
01:12:24god
01:12:25have raised them up
01:12:29but while it is plainly evident from the records of history that the earliest christians had no
01:12:35narrow views about the relationship between the present body of humiliation and the future body
01:12:41of glory it is equally shown that they paid the greatest attention to the mortal remains of their
01:12:48deceased friends permitting the fullest indulgence in human grief in doing so they were not only
01:12:56following the example of their master who sorrowed grievously over lazarus and whose own mortal remains
01:13:03were cared for by the loving reverence of nicodemus and joseph of arimathea
01:13:11christianity was no stoic system stoicism was indeed the noblest form of greek thought
01:13:19and one which approached most closely the christian standpoint but it put a ban on human affection and feeling
01:13:29christianity christian acted otherwise it flung a bright light on death illuminating the dark
01:13:37recesses of the tomb through the resurrection of jesus christ and the prospect for humanity which that
01:13:43resurrection opens up but it did not beg the vain attempt of stoicism to eradicate human nature
01:13:52on the contrary christianity sanctified by the example of jesus christ by the brief notice of the mourning
01:14:01of the church for the loss of their foremost champion saint stephen which we find in our narrative today
01:14:11such a gratification of natural feeling has never been inconsistent with the highest form of christian
01:14:17faith there may be the most joyous anticipation as to our friends who have been taken from us joined
01:14:25with the saddest reflections as to our own bereavement we may be most assured that our loss is the infinite
01:14:33gain of the departed and for them we do not mourn but we cannot help feeling that we have suffered
01:14:40a loss
01:14:41and for our loss we must grieve
01:14:45the feelings of a christian even now must be mixed and surely much more must have this been the case
01:14:53when the fed men buried stephen and made great lamentation over his party
01:15:01the last result we note in this passage
01:15:06is twofold stephen's martyrdom intensified the persecution for a time
01:15:11saul was made even more determined and became an active persecutor his mental position his intellectual
01:15:20convictions had received a shock and through dedication to the extreme to his duty
01:15:29he was trying to re-establish himself and quench his doubts by intensifying his efforts on behalf of his
01:15:36ancient creed
01:15:40some of the most violent persecutions the church has ever had to meet
01:15:44were set on foot by men whose faith in their own systems had been deeply shaken or who at times
01:15:51had no
01:15:51faith in anything at all the men whose faith had been shaken endeavored by their activity in defense of
01:15:59the system which they had once believed in to obtain an external guarantee and assurance of its truth
01:16:07while the secret unbeliever was often the worst of persecutors because he regarded all religions as equally false
01:16:16but therefore looked upon the new teachers as rash and mischievous innovators
01:16:23the result then of stephen's martyrdom was to render the church's state in jerusalem the worse for the time
01:16:29the members of the church were scattered far and wide all save the apostles here we behold a notable
01:16:39instance of the protecting care of providence over his infant church all save the apostles were dispersed
01:16:48from jerusalem one might have expected that they would have been especially sought after and they would have been the
01:16:56ones first to flee
01:17:01there is an early tradition however which goes back to the second century and finally some support in this passage
01:17:08that our lord had ordered the apostles to remain in the city of jerusalem for 12 years following the ascension
01:17:16in order that everyone there would have an opportunity of hearing the truth
01:17:21his protecting hand was over the heads of the church while the members were scattered abroad
01:17:29but that same hand turned the apparent trial into the church's permanent gain the church now for the first time
01:17:37found that whatever it proved to be the case they were scattered abroad and went about preaching the word
01:17:45the church's present loss became its long-term abiding gift
01:17:52the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church violence reacted on the cause of those who employed
01:18:00it
01:18:00as violence no matter how it may temporarily triumph always reacts on those who use it whether their designs
01:18:10be intrinsically good or bad until in a widely disseminated gospel and in the daily increasing numbers of
01:18:17disciples the eye of faith learnt to read the clearest fulfillment of the ancient declaration
01:18:25the wrath of man shall praise god and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain
01:18:36let us pray o god our refuge and strength who is the author of all godliness
01:18:44be ready we beseech you to hear the devout prayers of your church grant that those things which we ask
01:18:53faithfully we may obtain effectually through jesus christ our lord amen
01:19:06may the lord bless us and keep us from all evil bringing us to everlasting life
01:19:14may the lord bless us and keep us from all evil bringing us to the kingdom of the kingdom of
01:19:19the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom
01:19:19of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the
01:19:19kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of
01:19:19the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom
01:19:20of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the
01:19:20kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of
01:19:20the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom
01:19:20of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the
01:19:20kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of
01:19:20the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom
01:19:20of