Because we are so controlled by our calendars, we mistakenly think of Christmas as a one-day event—December 25. Our ancestors were much wiser. They celebrated “twelve-tide”—twelve days of Christmas. Some of us have sung the song entitled, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Each day Christmas gets better. On day one the person receives a “partridge in a pear tree.” That takes care of Christmas dinner, but what happens when the partridge is gone? Then we move into more powerful gifts—golden rings, ladies dancing, lord leaping, and finally eleven pipers playing music and twelve drummers drumming.
How does the Church celebrate this twelve-day “explosion?” What does she have in store for us on this second day of Christmas? There is no way to outdo the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or is there?
She opens the Bible and tells us the story of St. Stephen. He was a young deacon in the infant Church, who had the privilege of being the first to shed his blood for Jesus. This man had the infant Jesus born into his heart at Baptism, and fed daily on his body and blood after that. Then the moment of total-giving came when Stephen was allowed to go to Calvary with Jesus (Acts 6:8-10, 7:54-59).
“Stephen, filled with grace and power, was working great wonders and signs among the people. Certain members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen…came forward and debated with Stephen, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke. When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him. But, he, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God…and said,
‘Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’”
In Stephen we see the fullness of the charisms of Baptism. He worked signs and wonders among the people, and beyond that began to proclaim God’s Word with such power that those living in darkness could not tolerate this light. On the spot, he gave them a synopsis of the entire Bible, leading up the death and resurrection of Jesus. Stephen models what eventually happens when a person allows Jesus to be fully born within them. He became a light many times brighter than the star of Bethlehem.
“But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears and rushed upon him together. They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him…As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’”
Calvary was repeated in this young lover of Jesus.
Stephen fulfilled the words of prophecy that Jesus spoke to his disciples (Matthew 10:17-22).
“When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
He also demonstrated the words of Jesus: “Greater love than this no man has than to lay down his life for his friends.” Imagine how much Stephen loved Jesus and his brothers and sisters in that early Christian community! He enacted once again the outpouring of love that God showed when he allowed his Son to be crucified. Christmas love was intensified thousands of times in Stephen’s act of self-giving.
The ball is now in our hands. God wants to create new Bethlehems and new Stephens as places where he can continue to pour out his love into the world. If we give him permission, he will use us to create the third, fourth, and fifth days of Christmas…and yes, even the “eight-hundred-thousand” day of Christmas.
“Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, O Lord, O faithful God” (Ps 31:6).
