On the 2nd day of Christmas....

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
It is the 26th of December and the day after our Christmas festivities. Some will be at boxing day sales and others avoiding them and heading out to the beach (here in Australia), or movies or some other place of repose.
In times gone by this day was another Holy day; the feast of Saint Stephen.
“Good king Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen...” Do you know the song? It is a Christmas carol that has nothing about jingle bells and Santa, or even the holy nativity, but it tells the story of a Good Christian King who noticed a poor man and he wanted to give a fine and hearty feast for the poor man.
On the travels the king’s servant became too cold to go on and the Good King tells him to walk in his footsteps where the heat radiated and kept him warm. The song concludes that "Therefore, Christian men, be sure- Wealth or rank possessing-Ye who now will bless the poor - Shall yourselves find blessing”

In my little part of the world today I have heard from people who were alone on Christmas day. They were not homeless people. There is a “drop in” centre here for the homeless over the Christmas period. These people, of whom I speak, are those who I would describe as the Christmas orphans. It isn’t that they don’t have family, but just that on Christmas day when everyone is with family, for one reason or another, these people are on their own and it hurts.
Where is true Christianity in this? If true Christianity is alive and thriving, every Christmas orphan would have a place of love and belonging on Christmas day, because they’d be adopted into the homes of Church family and friends.

I find it interesting that a song about Christian care, compassion and hospitality is written about an event that took place also on the day of Saint Stephen. Perhaps the composer had this same realization on this same day, that there was a need to encourage all Christians to take Christs message of care, compassion and love seriously. And how does this tie into the feast of Saint Stephen?

Saint Stephen was that young man among the believers, who was first to step out and take the message of the Good News seriously. We find his story in the book of Acts:

Acts 6:8-15 “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.
Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.”
So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”
All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

What we gather from this is that Stephen was traveling and where ever he travelled he was being a witness to the message of the Gospel. The first description of Stephen shows us that he was primarily known for being full of grace. We find that he also performed signs and wonders among the people, which I’m guessing means that he prayed for people, and with people, and things happened. He had a message about the Good News of Jesus Christ, but his words were not empty. He was a genuine person who firstly cared for people- Full of grace. What does it mean – Grace? Grace means undeserved favour. How would a person be, if they were described as being full of Grace?

The lyrics of the song Good King Wenceslas, has a part where the king tells the servant to walk in his footsteps to keep warm. It is sung as a literal story, but it makes a lot of sense if we look at it figuratively as walking in the footsteps of Christ.
““Mark my footsteps, my good page - Tread thou in them boldly - Thou shalt find the winter's rage - Freeze thy blood less coldly." In his master's steps he trod - Where the snow lay dinted - Heat was in the very sod - Which the Saint had printed”

Saint Stephen was taken before the Sanhedrin and put on trial for his faith. If we were on trial for being Christian would there be enough evidence to convict us? Believing in God does not make you a Christian, because even Satan believes in God.

On the Second day of Christmas my true love gave to me; two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
We have talked about the partridge already, which is the gift of Christ that we celebrate on Christmas day, but in the two turtle doves we also have the two testaments… the Old Testament and the New Testament. These are gifts and these gifts are what St. Stephen used to give testimony. He explained the message of God from the Old Testament and explained them and the Good News through the revelation of Jesus.
Truly, when it comes to these two testaments, the New is in the Old contained and the Old is in the New explained. You can have the New Testament and read it and get it wrong. You can be faithful to the Old Testament and completely miss the point. And you can have both and still miss the reality. But don’t ever think that they contradict or portray a different God, as I’ve heard others suggest, because they do not. But we must read it thoroughly to realize.

Saint Stephan was explaining the Old Testament to Old Testament experts but explaining it in the revelation that comes from Jesus. They took offence.
Acts 7: 51-60 ““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.”
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.”

Stephan accuses the Sanhedrin of always resisting the Holy Spirit, killing the prophets and killing the Messiah. He was, in short, accusing them of being God’s own enemies! This is incredibly shocking because these people considered themselves to be the faithful people of God. Paul, then known as Saul, was among these.

How many of us who are in the church, believing ourselves to be the faithful people of God, are actually the enemy of God? We would do well to think about this and ask God to shine His search light in our hearts and reveal His vision.

What we believe, as Christians, is that Jesus was there at the beginning of time. When God created the world and he spoke life into our world, Jesus was there. He was not known as Jesus, but as the Word of the Lord. This is why John begins his Gospel with the explanation about the Word becoming flesh. This understanding about Jesus, this revelation, is what the early church was proclaiming. But it seemed like blasphemy to those who only understood religion in terms of a list of dos and don’ts.

Is our comfort in the things we do? Do we placate ourselves with thinking that we are good Christians because we are kind and good and believe in God? It’s not enough.
Is our comfort in the things we don’t do? Do we not commit murder and fraud and so consider ourselves to be good enough to be a good Christian?

The Gospel is both a challenge and a comfort. It is a challenge because everything you might have ever thought about how to be acceptable to God is simply rubbish if you think that it depends on anything you do or don’t do.

The Gospel is a comfort because if you have come to the realization that you simply are not good enough in your human efforts to attain God’s standard, you are offered the free gift of Jesus Sacrifice. This is the ONLY way to the father.

St. Stephan did not fear his death. He had a vision of God and he knew that he was walking in the footsteps of his God. In those footsteps he received the warmth needed to bear life’s cruel and bitter cold.

Our challenge for the second day of Christmas is to know that the message of the Gospel was there at the book of Genesis. We acknowledge that we can’t obtain heaven by our religious observances alone, but in response to acknowledging the gift of Jesus we, if we are fair dinkum, walk in our saviour’s footsteps, in love and mercy and sacrifice.
Our saviour knew the scriptures. We need to know them too- both Old and New testaments. In both these, when read with the personal submission to our saviour, who is author and perfector of our faith, we will discover the love and mercy of God and the call to proclaim the Good News and in doing so, sometimes even use words.