Standing Beside Him

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
04.20.08; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 31; Acts 7:55-60

It’s not just flowers and motorcycles that come out this time of year. Now that the chill of winter has left the air...well...mostly left the air...and the yards across suburban America are filled with the sounds of mowers being cranked up, it’s time again for another of the great rituals of spring: teaching your kids how to ride a bike. Back in the fall, they were noodling around with training wheels, as those little hard plastic outrigger wheels spun and rattled along the ground. Then it got cold.

But now, they’re training-wheel free, and sitting nervously next to you on their little bike, pointing straight down a long open patch of sidewalk. You can feel their tentativeness and their lack of balance as they wobble next to you. You can’t let go for a moment, because they don’t have a clue how to keep themselves upright. The moment you step away from them...they’re goin’ down.

And so you tell them what to do. Just keep your balance. Look where you’re going. Keep pedaling. You tell them all the things that you know, all the things that you can think of about riding. But how can you share that feeling...now deep wired in you...of how to ride? You teach, you share, and then...well, then you start pushing them forward, telling them to pedal! pedal! pedal! while slowly increasing the pace until you’re at a modest run beside them, and then...you release.

And they wobble forwards, for an instant unaware that you aren’t with them, the centrifugal force of their wheels and their own movement providing the balance that you had provided. For a second or two or three they continue on, pedaling madly. And then they realize you’re not there, and they begin to tilt and teeter and drift off into hopefully grass and come crunching down in a pile of cycle and child.

After a few moments of trying to convince them that bruises and cuts build character, you’ve got them back up to try it again. Again, it’s your sense of balance that holds them up, your legs that help drive them forward, your voice that calls out from behind them, pedal! pedal! pedal! Look out for that bush! Oh....no...that’s gotta hurt...

This goes on for a while, but then there comes that moment when they suddenly, magically get it. Suddenly, they grasp what it is they’re supposed to be doing, usually without even thinking about it. Somewhere deep down inside, it’s clicked. You slow down, and fall behind, watching that small person takes off on their own, little legs pumping like mad, wobbly but moving off and away. They’ve got it.

It was like that when you learned yourself. It’s like that whenever you try to pass something on. You teach, you share...you witness..and then you hope that somehow, someway, the people you’re teaching will get it.

We get a hard story of witnessing today, a difficult moment, coming to us in the story of the death of Stephen.

Stephen is the first of the Christian martyrs. Being a martyr doesn’t necessarily mean dying, by the way. The word “martyr” just means “to witness,” so that was what he was doing. He was telling people about Jesus, about who he was and why he was so very important. Let’s just say that the conversation didn’t go so well. It ends with him being stoned to death, which generally isn’t a sign that people are receptive to your message.

But what is vitally important in looking at this brutal little story is not just the things that Stephen says to the increasingly hostile mob. It’s the way that he acts, and particularly, the way that the Book of Acts records his final moments. With a raging crowd surrounding him and casting stones, we read that Stephen does two things.

First, he asks Jesus to receive his Spirit. Why does this seem familiar? Well, it should seem familiar for two reasons. Together this morning, as this service began, we read from Psalm 31, and said “Into your hand, I commit my spirit.” But more significantly, what Stephen says in verse 59 should call something else to mind. Remembering that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are all one book, when we look back to Luke 23:46, Jesus says the same thing to God just as he dies, calling upon that ancient song of praise...that very same verse in that very same Psalm...to invoke God’s eternal care.

Stephen does a second thing, making a statement that is recorded as his last words, and that thing is what sets his death aside as utterly and completely different from that of those so-called religious “martyrs” who kill themselves and others. As he falls to his knees, as life itself is being bludgeoned out of him, he doesn’t shout out curses or proclaim that God’ wrath will fall upon the infidels who are slaying him. He does precisely the opposite thing. He cries out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

That, too, should seem familiar. In calling for the forgiveness of those who are in the process of taking his life, he is doing precisely the same thing that we find, again, back in Luke’s Gospel. Luke 23:34 tells us that Jesus called out for God to forgive those who had crucified him. Again, in Stephen’s last words and last actions, we have a mirror of Christ’s own nature. Stephen...even in those last, horrible moments...shows us that he gets it. Somewhere deep inside him, something has clicked, and his witness and the manner of his life tell us that he’s really and truly grasped what Jesus lived and taught.

So...how are you doing? Few of us, God willing, will have to endure anything like what Stephen endured. But all of us live. All of us breathe. All of us understand...in principle...what a Christian life means. But being Christian goes beyond just agreeing to abide by a set of rules, or reading your Bible daily, or showing up here at 10:35 sharp every Sunday, or being in charge of this or that committee. It has much more to do with the degree to which the trajectory of your life has been changed by Christ.

Something important has been given to you, something that your life bears witness to. Your ability to forgive shows the world a sign of how you’ve learned, and how deeply you get it. Most of us don’t have to endure nails and stones...but how do we do with what we do endure? Your ability to show grace, grace to those who shout you down, grace to those who undercut or belittle you...this shows how deeply we get it. Yeah, maybe we’re a little wobbly. Maybe we’re a little unsure.

But it’s the whole reason He taught us in the first place, the whole reason he ran by our side, and the reason he smiles as he watches us get it.