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| St Thomas -- Jusepe de Ribera |
In this
week’s Gospel, the disciple Thomas says to Jesus, "Lord, we do not know
where you are going. How can we know the way?" The reply he receives is
famous: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life”. The other readings
show how, thanks to the Apostles’ preaching, this message could also speak
powerfully to people who had not themselves followed Jesus of Nazareth, or
witnessed his mysterious post-Resurrection appearances.
The passage
from Acts is especially compelling in this respect. It is a very truncated
version of the story of Stephen, a man held in such high regard by the early
Christians that he was elected to the new office of deacon, and so entrusted
with special responsibilities for the welfare of the fledgling Church. One day,
as the price of this trust, Stephen faced a much greater and far more difficult
call – to be the first in a long line of Christian martyrs.
‘Martyr’
does not mean ‘victim’, as it is often taken to mean in modern English. It
means ‘witness’. Stephen had found his salvation in Christ. Jesus was for him
THE way, THE truth and THE life. Accordingly, his pre-eminent task was to
witness to this fact, to “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light”, as the Epistle for this week puts it.
Christian witness of this kind was not merely a duty, but a sacred privilege
that could transcend even martyrdom. In death, Stephen remained what through Christ’s Cross he had become
in life, one of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own
people”.
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| Stoning of Stephen -- Lorenzo Lotto |
Nowadays,
we find it increasingly difficult to differentiate between martyrs and
fanatics, and the ideology of multiculturalism pressures us to say that Jesus
is just one way, not the way. This is certainly a more
comfortable message for contemporary Christians to affirm, but it is not what
these Bible readings actually say. So how should we respond to them?
We know
what membership of the Church meant to Stephen. What does it mean to contemporary
Christians? Often it a matter of belonging to a welcoming group whose social
life they enjoy, and whose 'good causes' they endorse. When that is case, it
seems more than enough commit two or three Sunday mornings a month, and few
other times for ‘outreach’. But if it something much deeper than this – the
privilege of belonging to a ‘royal priesthood’ called 'out of darkness into
light' by the saving work of God in Christ -- then we will be willing to
sacrifice a very great deal for it -- perhaps even life itself, if (God forbid)
the occasion should ever arise when this is demanded of us.
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