Sermon for the Feast of St. Stephen
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge
“Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” T.S. Eliot observes in his 1935 drama, Murder in the Cathedral. That play along with the well-known and well-beloved Christmas Carol, Good King Wenceslaus, written by John Mason Neale in 1853 and sung to a 13th century spring dance melody (Tempus Adest Floridum), offer an intriguing commentary on the Christmas mystery. In Eliot’s play, a sermon preached by Archbishop Thomas a Becket Christmas morning serves as prologue to his martyrdom on December 29th, 1170. The sermon focuses on the Feast of Stephen which falls immediately after Christmas Day. The hymn draws upon a 12th account of a 10th century Duke of Bohemia’s generosity and service towards the poor.
St. Stephen is the proto-martyr, the first martyr and prototype of martyrdom in the Christian understanding. He was also one of the first set of deacons in the nascent and emerging Christian community. Thus, sacrifice and service are intimately connected. The hymn makes no direct reference to the Nativity of Christ but narrates a story of service to the poor on “the Feast of Stephen.” The sermon in the play makes explicit the connection between Christ’s birth and Stephen’s martyrdom and in so doing illuminates the deeper meaning of Christmas.
It is no accident that the Feast of St. Stephen follows directly upon the Feast of the Nativity of Christ. It highlights the deeper reality of the meaning of Christ’s holy birth. “Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and in the Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figures, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs.” We celebrate Christ’s birth by remembering his Passion and death; such is the sacrament. “Do this in remembrance of me.” We cannot conceive of Christmas apart from the reality of his Passion and Death for us. “We celebrate at once the Birth of Our Lord and His Passion and Death upon the Cross.” This is all part of the reality from which we shy away but which the special feasts of Christmas remind us, starting with St. Stephen’s day. As Eliot has the Archbishop note, “as the World sees, this is to behave in a strange fashion. For who in the World will both mourn and rejoice at once and for the same reason?” But that is exactly the Christian reality.
