<em>Veteran theologian and </em>Herald <em>contributor John Barton unpicks the message of the paradox that is St Stephen's Day: when the liturgical theme jumps bafflingly from the birth of the Prince of Peace to the violent judicial murder of the first Christian martyr, and all still within the Christmas Octave: the eight-days-inclusive week that follows a major feast but which at Christmas runs to twelve. </em>
Few people in Britain know that Boxing Day is kept by the Christian churches as the feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. But if they do know, it is not because they have a great familiarity with the church calendar. Many today do not even know, after all, what Christians commemorate at Easter, let alone on a day mainly set aside for turkey sandwiches and visits to the sales.
Yet while other festivals within the Christmas Octave (like St John and the Holy Innocents) are hardly known at all, St Stephen’s Day does still have a vague presence in popular thought because of John Mason Neale’s carol, published in 1835 and still a favourite: “Good King Wenceslas”.
According to legend “Wenceslas” – or rather Vaclav the Good, a tenth-century Duke of Bohemia – “looked out” at the snowy scene in which a poor man was gathering winter fuel “on the feast of Stephen”. The story is so much better known the account of Stephen’s martyrdom in Acts that 26 December seems more a celebration of Wenceslas than of Stephen.
The meaning of the day is taken to be that of the carol’s last lines:
This is, of course, in no way a bad or wrong-headed message. It is one of the traditional themes of Christmastide, when we remember, as St Paul puts it, that “though [Jesus] was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Paul is here speaking primarily of the metaphorical “riches” Christ had as God, and the equally metaphorical “poverty” involved in his becoming incarnate in our world. But he immediately links this with God’s concern for the literally poor – the passage from which these words are taken is concerned with Paul’s collection for poor Christians in Jerusalem – and there are many exhortations in the Old Testament for those with enough to remember poor people and to share their goods with them.
This is not, however, the original, or perhaps the deepest message of “the feast of Stephen”. Stephen’s martyrdom, which Paul himself witnessed, did not result from his care for the poor, but from the way he witnessed to the faith by insisting on something that was – and is – much more controversial: what is now often referred to as “speaking truth to power”. Stephen is presented as the first exemplar of the imitation of Christ: not only in his suffering and his prayer that God might forgive his executioners, but also in preaching a message that challenged the religious authorities.
We do not know exactly why Jesus himself was arrested and convicted, but we may be sure, in his case too, that it was not because he taught that people should be kind to the poor. That was a teaching wholly uncontroversial within first century Judaism. The unwelcome challenge he presented lay more in the contentious claim that God had repudiated the Temple in Jerusalem, and with it the authorities who had, in the words of Jesus, “made it a den of robbers” (Luke 19:45-6).
Whether that is the whole story, historically speaking, we can’t be sure, but it is certainly how the biblical writers appear to have seen the matter. There is one feature of the commemoration of Stephen that is obvious, however, although from a historical point of view it may also be accidental. We celebrate his martyrdom on the very next day after Christmas Day—suddenly wrenching our eyes away from the peaceful scene in Bethlehem to contemplate, incongruously, a man being stoned to death.
Christian writers have seen in this weird juxtaposition a deliberate paradox pointing to much that is distinctive about Christian belief. An ancient prayer sets it out simply and profoundly:
Stephen’s martyrdom does not negate the joy of the Nativity, but is in some mysterious way a confirmation of it. Many theologians have been struck by this accidental placement, which sets the celebration of the Church’s first martyr immediately next to the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
The ideas this suggests to them, however, are general truths of the Christian faith, with its odd belief in human life with God as an indissoluble blend of suffering and glory so puzzling to many sceptical observers. The paradox here is expounded effectively by TS Eliot, in the Christmas sermon he puts into the mouth of Thomas Becket in <em>Murder in the Cathedral</em>:
Becket’s own martyrdom is commemorated only three days after Stephen’s. The gospel Christians proclaim does involve the interplay of joy and sorrow, whether Eliot – who was always inclined to highlight the sorrow – got the balance completely right or not. The juxtaposition of Christmas Day and the Feast of Stephen says something about this theme.
It also speaks of the complication of mere seasonal cheerfulness through the acknowledgement of the sufferings not only of Christ, but also of the world he came to save. It points, too, to the opposite (but not equal and opposite) insistence that these sufferings will be mysteriously transformed by joy. As we recall at Easter, Christ’s wounds remain in his risen body, but that body is much more than merely a resuscitated version of the one that was crucified.
This is because in Christ everything is made new. The arrangement of the Church’s year may often strike us as shambolic, because it grew organically instead of being planned. Nevertheless, in so strangely placing the celebration of St Stephen on 26 December it gives us the opportunity to reflect on some central truths of our faith. The placement may be fortuitous, but it is also fortunate. The joy outweighs the sorrow.
<em>The Revd Dr John Barton is Emeritus Oriel & Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow of Campion Hall. His most recent book, </em>The Word: On the Translation of the Bible<em>, is published by Allen Lane (£25).</em>
