A disturbing story

In Acts 7 we see Stephen before the Sanhedrin, on trial for his life. What does he choose to say? Instead of attempting to explain his reasons for believing that Jesus is the one God's word had promised, he tells a story. It seems to be a familiar story- beginning with Abraham, telling of the adventures of Joseph, Moses, Joshua and David. These were the heroes of the Jewish faith, their founding fathers, and their stories were well known. Stephen doesn't tell this story because it says something new, but because it taps into something old. His hearers know their place in this story, it tells them where they have come from and who they are called to be.

However, Stephen's story has a sting in the tail. It turns out to be not a story of man's righteousness, a story to make the Sanhedrin feel proud of themselves, but a story that exposes how often people fail to recognise God when He appears.

'You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: you always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him – you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.’  (Acts 7: 51-53)

Perhaps the most shocking effect of this story is that here, as Stephen finishes telling it, it becomes clear that he has told it not just to reveal what happened to his Lord, but also what was now, inevitably, going to happen to himself. It becomes a much bigger thing than a man in a room before a jury, but a telling of God's story. How our world is a dark place, where the people that God calls to speak of His Light, His Hope and His Love are unwelcome, unrecognised, and sometimes destroyed. 

But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. (Acts 8:3)

The truth is often confrontational, rather than comforting. We would prefer the stories we tell this Christmas to be gentle, warming ones- but when God enters into human history, revealing both who He is and what we are like, the truth we must face up to is sometimes uncomfortable. Would we rather leave the baby in a manger far away in Bethlehem than honestly work out where we stand in the ongoing story of God's light shining into our world today?

It is Paul himself who can later write to the church in Corinth:

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ 
made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.  (2 Cor 4: 6)