January 16, 2005 Sermon

Stephen and Paul I
Acts 6:38 -7:60

In December of 1862, in the grim middle of the Civil War, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sat on his horse atop a ridge overlooking Fredericksburg , Virginia . Beside him on his own mount sat General James Longstreet. The two watched repeated charges up the steep hills by Union forces. Again and again the blue soldiers pulled themselves to their feet and attacked uphill against enemies hidden behind stone walls. Cannon raked their lines. Again and again a few men would reach the wall and start hand-to-hand fighting. Again and again their horrendous losses forced them back down the hill.

There was something deeply moving, beautiful almost, about the fierce devotion that repeatedly drove those soldiers up that hill against impossible odds. Both Lee and Longstreet found themselves crying as they watched—crying for their foes. Finally, as the sun set and the attack stopped, Lee turned to his companion and said, “It is well that war is so terrible: else we would grow too fond of it!”

Nearly 13,000 Union soldiers died that day at Fredericksburg ; nearly 5,000 Confederates joined them. Is there anything—any idea, any ideal, any threat—that we would consider worth dying for today?

Today we read the story of Stephen, who died for the brand-new idea of Jesus as the Christ. Hauled before a kangaroo court, knowing he would die no matter what he said in his own defense, Stephen let rip with an incredible sermon. He reviewed the history of his own Jewish people. He stressed how the entire story pointed to a Messiah. He confessed that he believed Jesus was that Messiah. Then he accused his hearers of having killed Jesus, the Son of God.

This the Jews (and their Roman masters) could not tolerate. They stoned Stephen to death. And a young man named Saul, of whom we will hear much more, watched approvingly.

Is there anything—any idea, any ideal, any threat—that we would consider worth dying for today? Stephen thought there was. The Union —and the Confederacy, for that matter—thought so. But do we think so, here in the year of Our Lord 2005?

This question occurred to me as I watched the third Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King. A moment arrives in the story when the great, climactic battle has turned against the good guys. Enemies have surrounded their city. They have breached its outer walls; tens of thousands of their soldiers have massed on the field before it, waiting to invade and sack it. The good guys desperately defend it through the night, but all seems lost. Their commander has gone mad and is ordering his guards to burn both himself and his wounded son on a funeral pyre. The king all look for to come and rescue his city is nowhere to be found. The most powerful leader the good guys have is defeated in a personal battle with an evil king, who prepares to finish him off, when . . .

Dawn comes. With it arrives a mounted army of good guys from the north. They blow their horns and charge. They sweep through the bad guys and contribute to the triumph of good over evil. I first read this scene as a boy of thirteen. It thrilled me. It took root in my imagination. I could just hear those horns. I could just see those horses galloping toward their foes. When I watched it “come to life” in the movie theater I felt an indescribable surge of joy—and of horror. To Director Peter Jackson’s credit, though the Lord of the Rings is a work of fantasy, he never shies away from telling the truth about war. He shows it in all its gritty, grisly terror. As this charge unfolded before our eyes on the screen I found myself mourning for the suffering and death of the men who made it.

As a teenager reading this scene it did not occur to me to worry about the pain of war. I felt only the savage joy of triumph. As a middle-aged man watching it happen I felt both the joy and the sorrow. Here were men I had grown to love dying. Here were people with families, beloved land to tend, a culture and a nation to sustain, dying. Suddenly it hurt. And it made me wonder what would it take to make me do that?!?

Is there anything worth dying for? These fantasy story characters believed in the goodness of freedom so deeply they volunteered to die for it. Would I? Stephen believed in Jesus as the Messiah so deeply he willingly died to witness to him. Would I?

We are at war today. We care deeply about our soldiers. We have prayed for Keith Wilson, son of Dave and stepson of Gloria, as he has served in Iraq . We have prayed for David Sherman, a friend of the Rosenberg family who used to attend here, who was seriously wounded by shrapnel in Iraq . In Michigan we fly our flags at half-mast for a week each time one of our own dies at war. We are divided over whether this war is just, but we are united over supporting our fighting young men and women.

But is Iraqi Freedom (the name we have given our invasion) worth Americans dying for? As we debated this question during the last presidential election I began to wonder whether our society believes anything is worth dying for. Have we become too comfortable, too arrogant, as our Islamist enemies claim? What would it take to motivate us to risk injury and death? An attack against American soil? A clear, present threat to our own families? A man pointing a gun at my chest?

Notice that none of these threats has anything to do with Jesus. When we must debate whether terrorists can move us to risk death, the idea of taking a stand for Jesus seems ridiculous. Yet that is exactly what Stephen did. But first, he got into an argument. The Book of Acts does not tell us exactly why, just that his opponents paid off some low-lifes to lie about him before the Jewish Council. There, they claimed he had gone about “speaking against Moses and God.”

Stephen had a choice. No matter how he responded he faced grave danger. But he might have saved his life had he defended himself gently, with great respect for his fellow Jews and their beliefs. Instead, he fought back hard, knowing his decision would lead to his death that very day.

We face such decisions on a regular basis. Oh, we rarely face a life-or-death dilemma. More often, our choices have seemingly minor consequences. It’s only when we look at their eternal implications that we see their complete seriousness.

I have just started a new job. Do I want to become known as a Christian? Keeping quiet about my faith might make things go smoother. I wouldn’t have to deal with the awkward silences after certain jokes. I wouldn’t have to battle the holier-than-thou image.

A teacher comments on my kid’s paper with an unfair stereotype of Christians. Should I speak to the teacher and risk getting my kid labeled as having a difficult and backward parent? Should I say something to my kid and risk developing a complex in him that may not already exist?

These little slices of life mirror the great big, bad world out there. The Lord of the Rings is right about one thing: we are locked in an eternal battle of good against evil. That battle plays out on grand fields with armies, and it plays out in our little lives. In both cases the battle matters. We have two choices: fight to win, or lose. To choose not to fight is to choose to lose. Stand up. Stand up and witness to your faith. Find strength through prayer and support at church to speak the truth about Jesus in love. If we Christian fail to speak, whom do you suppose with do the talking for us? And if we fail to talk, how do you suppose the battle will end?