“Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord”
The three holy days of Christmas illuminate the deeper mystery of Christmas in striking ways. The Feast of St. Stephen today celebrates the protomartyr or first martyr of the Christian Church, Stephen, whose life and death mirror the life and death of Christ, especially the idea of loving sacrifice and forgiveness. Stephen, one of the first deacons of the emerging Church, is stoned to death because he followed what was at first known only as The Way. Like Christ, as the Collect puts it, he “prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus.” His words, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” as Acts puts it, echo Christ’s first word from the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” perhaps the most gentle and yet most compelling rebuke of our sinful humanity in the whole of the Scriptures. And, perhaps, the only feature of St. Stephen’s Day readings which connect to the more usual sentiments and feelings of the Christmas season which otherwise this feast counters and challenges.
Yet the feast of Stephen is embedded in our Western Christian imaginary more likely through the 19th century hymn by the English priest John Mason Neale. It is based on a poem by the Czech poet Vaclav Svaboda’s retelling of a 10th century legend about Wenceslaus, the Duke of Bohemia (not a king!). The hymn is set to a tune Tempest Adest Floridum found in a 16th century collection of 74 medieval Latin songs that were popular in Scandinavia, a collection known in its abbreviation as Piae Cantiones. Wenceslaus, at once an historical and mythological figure, is the only medieval ruler to be mentioned in any of the carols of Christmas and as obscure as he and Bohemia might seem to us, the carol has captured the Christian imagination. Strange to say, it is one of the better known carols. It is probably the only way that people even know about the Feast of Stephen rather than Boxing Day!
What John Mason Neale does with the poem and story is to extend the idea of Stephen’s Christian witness to the idea of sacrifice in service. In this case, Good King Wenceslaus looks out the window of his palace and sees a poor man “gath’ring winter fuel” and undertakes to help him by bringing him food and wine. All on the Feast of Stephen. Wenceslaus and his page or servant make the arduous journey to his dwelling near St. Agnes’ fountain despite “the rude wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather.” His page finds the going hard and thinks he “can go no longer.” Wenceslaus bids him tread in his own footsteps. He is determined to help the poor and needy. Wenceslaus is himself, of course, walking in the steps of Christ even as Stephen’s life and death mirror the way of Christ. Lovely images and associations.
There is even more to the symbolic significance of St. Stephen’s Day for our deeper understanding of the wonder and mystery of Christ’s birth. It is captured in T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral. There the 12th century Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket, caught up in what is known as the Investiture Controversy about the relation and respective powers of Church and State, was someone King Henry II saw as a ‘troublesome priest’. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” He is supposed to have said. Some of his knights, hearing this, took it upon themselves to murder the Archbishop at the altar in Canterbury.
T.S. Eliot in his play inserts an interlude between the two acts. It consists entirely of a fictional sermon preached by the Archbishop on Christmas morning. It is about “the deep meaning and mystery of our masses of Christmas Day” but references explicitly the Feast of Stephen celebrated on the very next day after Christmas. Eliot has the Archbishop note that “wherever Mass is said, we re-enact the Passion and Death of Our Lord; and on this Christmas Day we do this in celebration of His Birth. So that at the same moment we rejoice in His coming for the salvation of men, and offer again to God His Body and Blood in sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” The phrases are taken explicitly from the Prayer Book’s Prayer of Consecration.
He goes to say that it is no accident that on the day after Christmas we celebrate “the martyrdom of His first martyr, the blessed Stephen.” And why? “Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and in the Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs.” Wonderful. The sermon points to the deeper meaning of martyr or witness in ways that speak to all of us in our lives. We are meant to be “the instrument[s] of God as those who have “lost [their] will in the will of God,” yet “not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God.” “Not my will but thine be done,” Christ prays in Gethsemane. “Thy will be done,” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. It is all really about who we are in Christ and Christ in us. The radical meaning of service and love is found in Christ’s sacrifice and that becomes the model and measure for us in our lives.
In the Gospel for today, Jesus reminds us of the witness of the prophets mentioning Zachariah who was stoned and killed “between the temple and the altar” as told in 2 Chronicles, the first lesson at Evensong today. Yet Christ’s words of lament about human sin and wickedness end with the words of blessing. “Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.” The radical meaning of that is seen in the mystery of Christmas, highlighted for us in the wonder of the Feast of St. Stephen, whose story has inspired poets and writers to reflect more deeply upon the sacred mystery and meaning of Christ’s holy nativity. It is the only day in Christmastide where the liturgical colour is changed from white to red. St. Stephen’s martyrdom is a blessing and a cause for our rejoicing even in times of mourning.
“Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.”
Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. Stephen 2024