Tuesday, December 26 - Stephen and Wenceslas

Legend has it that the day Christ was born was a day of peace, when there was no war in the world.  Be that as it may, Malcolm Guite reminds us that Christ was already under threat from powerful people almost immediately:

For even as we sing our final carol

His family is up and on that road,

Fleeing the wrath of someone else's quarrel,

Glancing behind and shouldering their load (Guite, "Refugee" Sounding the Seasons, 16)

A good tonic against too much sentimentality at Christmas is to remember Stephen, the first martyr, on December 26.  Though at first puzzling (he doesn't appear in the Scriptures until after Jesus' ascension!), it reminds us immediately how threatening the message of Christ is to business-as-usual.  What are we doing when we pay attention to such things as the liturgical calendar?  It's for the sake of the church.  The church is the body of Christ.  Christ, of course, still has a body.  But the church's life is such that it participates in Christ's life.  And this is what the liturgical year is: a tracing of the contours of Christ's life.  And at every stage, we the church find ourselves addressed about our own life.  Thus, as soon as we are reminded at Christmas that we are bearers of the message that the King of Kings has come to us, we are also reminded of the cost of bearing that message: the cross, always the cross.  Herman Bavinck has said that the life of the church is always "under the cross" until Christ comes again.  This makes for a joyful festival season of Christmas, but only as we make Christ our joy.  December 26 gives us two great examples of Christmas joy over and against the hatred of the world: Stephen and Wenceslas.

Over and against the threats of Saul the persecutor, Stephen testified vividly to Jesus Christ.  As his tormentors stood with stones poised for the throwing, Stephen joyfully beheld the Lord Jesus and forgave his accusers.  The fallout from his murder was the spread of the church around the Mediterranean region, and the conversion of his persecutor, Saul.  Guite writes about/to Stephen:

Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,

Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.

They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,

And sowed a seed that blossomed in St. Paul. (Guite, "St. Stephen," Sounding the Seasons, 17)

King Wenceslaus was a king in the Slovak regions of East Europe in the 900s.  His reign was remarkable for being characterized of a particularly biblical form of justice: care for the poorest, prison reform, the sort of compassion for the least which was always enjoined upon Israel - to remember that they had been slaves who were then redeemed.  Indeed, the source of all Christian love, of fulfilling the Golden Rule, is to remember how much God has shown his love to us.  Wenceslaus is linked with Stephen in two ways: first, when he was killed by his brother and an angry mob on his way to church, he forgave them all with his dying breath, as Stephen did.  The joy with which he gladly used what he had for the poor, was the joy with which he died.  Second, through the Christmas carol, "Good King Wenceslaus."  It tells a vivid story of Wenceslaus' determination to feed a poor beggar he has seen on December 26, St. Stephen's day.  When his page hesitates on account of the bitter cold, Wenceslaus' encouragement helps the page to press on through the literal cold of the bitter Eastern European winter and also through the figurative cold of his own heart, which puts up excuses to not serve the poor, rather than persevering for the blessing.  As I write this, it strikes me that both the story of Stephen and Wenceslaus together provide a picture of how we should look for Christ: in the persecuted, for Christ told Saul that when he persecuted Stephen and the rest of the church, he was persecuting Christ.  And, in the poor, for Christ told a parable in the Gospel of Luke about how when people were generous to the poor, they were being generous to Christ.

Here are the lyrics to "Good King Wenceslaus:"

Good King Wenceslas looked out

On the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about,

Deep and crisp and even;

Brightly shone the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight,

Gathering winter fuel.

"Hither, page, and stand by me,

If thou knowest it, telling;

Yonder peasant, who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?"

"Sire, he lives a good league hence,

Underneath the mountain,

Right against the forest fence,

By Saint Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine,

Bring me pine logs hither;

Thou and I will see him dine

When we bear them thither."

Page and monarch forth they went,

Forth they went together;

Through the rude wind's wild lament

And the bitter weather.

"Sire, the night is darker now,

And the wind blows stronger;

Fails my heart, I know not how,

I can go no longer."

"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.

Therefore, Christian men, be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor,

Shall yourselves find blessing.