Charting the emotions of the Stephen story (Acts 6 and 7) isn't easy. I mean, that this Stephen character would disturb the powers-that-be isn't difficult to understand. Generally, people who criticize the muck-a-mucks would be wise to keep down the volume, but this guy kept repeating those damnable words his crucified guru said about destroying everything that's holy. Stephen wasn't preaching the accepted gospel, all right? He was instead telling the Sanhedrin they were the damnable, and he wouldn't shut up.
What's hard to understand is exactly how these events went down. Frustrated as the enemy is, angry as they must have been, violent as they surely proved themselves to be, they somehow allow the man with the face of an angel to give them an entire lecture.
The thing is, he goes on and on and on. They don't stuff his mouth with some dusty scarf, they let him talk and he does. “Brothers and fathers, listen to me!" he says, and for some weird reason, they do. So he goes on for 47 verses, a last-words speech listed in Guiness, I'm sure.
It's not easy to read the emotions. His accusers, mad as heck, just let him spiel? Seriously? I didn't remember that, didn't remember a thing about Stephen's never-ending, final lengthy testimony. The truth?--I got a little bored myself by its sheer length. These murdering Sanhedriners let him foul the air forever with his angry rant. Seemed odd they would.
But then they killed him, inflicted the death penalty by stones, rocks. As Buechner says, it's hard work to kill a man by stoning, so hard the boys did some serious sweating, got so hot in fact that they took off whatever gear Sanhedriners wore back then and dropped those wraps at the feet of a young zealot named Saul--but that's a story for another time.
We used to read through bible stories when our kids were little, but that was long, long ago. The two of us happened to read through the story of Christianity's first martyr just two nights ago now, and I couldn't help but wonder about the incredible length of that sermon, couldn't chart the emotional character of what went exactly might have gone down that day.
But the stoning came back in technicolor. Stephen's martyrdom is a story little boys don't forget. Once the bad guys start winging rocks, I felt the heft of them in my own hands, not because I wanted Stephen dead, but because I knew that he was not guilty of whatever got him there under that horrifying storm, one melon-sized stone after another after another after another. Stephen got pounded into the ground for the cause of the gospel. He suffered a gruesome death at the name of Jesus. That's what I remembered, in images as potent as any I remember as a boy.
It was amazing, the power of that memory. It was likely the first time I'd read that story in more than a half a century, but just a few words retrieved it. It came back the way some of those old Sunday School ditties--"Dare to be a Daniel"--called up out of nowhere when I'm weeding out back.
I'd forgotten the long speech, but not the gruesome death of an innocent man, a martyr. That stuck--the story stuck. It's there for referencing in the library of my memory should I need to check it out. We read it again, and the action came back--not the long sermon or certainly its length, but the story was there, the stoning, even my grief as a boy for a man who was murdered for the gospel's sake.
Parked somewhere on the shelves of my memory is a volume titled "Martyr," and there in the very first chapter is a dead man stoned to death, a man named Stephen.
It's there, a story I've so clearly never, ever forgotten and never will.
And for that story, this morning, who knows?--almost 70 years ago--I'm greatly thankful, as I am for my parents' determination that I needed to have the story--and others--there for eternity.
I know the story.
But then they killed him, inflicted the death penalty by stones, rocks. As Buechner says, it's hard work to kill a man by stoning, so hard the boys did some serious sweating, got so hot in fact that they took off whatever gear Sanhedriners wore back then and dropped those wraps at the feet of a young zealot named Saul--but that's a story for another time.
We used to read through bible stories when our kids were little, but that was long, long ago. The two of us happened to read through the story of Christianity's first martyr just two nights ago now, and I couldn't help but wonder about the incredible length of that sermon, couldn't chart the emotional character of what went exactly might have gone down that day.
But the stoning came back in technicolor. Stephen's martyrdom is a story little boys don't forget. Once the bad guys start winging rocks, I felt the heft of them in my own hands, not because I wanted Stephen dead, but because I knew that he was not guilty of whatever got him there under that horrifying storm, one melon-sized stone after another after another after another. Stephen got pounded into the ground for the cause of the gospel. He suffered a gruesome death at the name of Jesus. That's what I remembered, in images as potent as any I remember as a boy.
It was amazing, the power of that memory. It was likely the first time I'd read that story in more than a half a century, but just a few words retrieved it. It came back the way some of those old Sunday School ditties--"Dare to be a Daniel"--called up out of nowhere when I'm weeding out back.
I'd forgotten the long speech, but not the gruesome death of an innocent man, a martyr. That stuck--the story stuck. It's there for referencing in the library of my memory should I need to check it out. We read it again, and the action came back--not the long sermon or certainly its length, but the story was there, the stoning, even my grief as a boy for a man who was murdered for the gospel's sake.
Parked somewhere on the shelves of my memory is a volume titled "Martyr," and there in the very first chapter is a dead man stoned to death, a man named Stephen.
It's there, a story I've so clearly never, ever forgotten and never will.
And for that story, this morning, who knows?--almost 70 years ago--I'm greatly thankful, as I am for my parents' determination that I needed to have the story--and others--there for eternity.
I know the story.
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