Fr Robert Hendrickson

“Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.”

Dear Friends in Christ,

This reading from Acts is one of those assigned for today, the fifth Sunday of Easter. What we begin to see here is not just the joy of the Resurrection but the cost of proclaiming that saving mystery and miracle to the world.

More than just the cost is revealed though as we also see Stephen (the first martyr of the Church) explicitly mirroring Jesus. With his dying breath he asked for forgiveness for those who were stoning him to death.

This is the most daunting of the Resurrection miracles I think. Learning to forgive is a lifelong pursuit. I tend to think that the proof of whether we are doing a reasonable job of understanding Scripture is born out in our lives. If we are reading, marking, and letting it change us — change our behaviors, relationships, and way of seeing the world — then we might be said to be doing a reasonable job of interpreting Scripture.

Our lives are the interpretation. How we live and love and give and pray and serve and so much more are the ways others also see what the Scriptures mean. They see what being the Body of Christ means. What being baptized means. And more. We become the interpretation for them. We become the invitation for them to come and see.

Stephen’s final moments are not one moment. His last breath is the deepest interpretation of what it meant to follow Jesus. He knew he must forgive. And here, two millennia later, we read his interpretation. In our own age of anger and revenge we read this story of one man, the first martyr, trying to live into the miracle of the Resurrection even as he met his earthly end. We see one man interpreting for us the Living Word.

May we too find the courage and hope to interpret the Scriptures faithfully enough that those who know us come to know not just what we believe but what we have become — the Body of Christ.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert+