“God so loved the world,” we are told in John’s Gospel.
And if you don’t know what verse of scripture I’m quoting, just tune into a
professional sporting event. Somewhere in the crowd, often right behind the
backstop, someone (he had a rainbow wig on when I was a kid) is holding a sign
with the scripture reference (John 3:16). If you’re familiar with the
Comfortable Word in the BCP, no doubt you know the verse by heart. It is at the
core of our proclamation about Jesus the Christ. Everything we know about
Jesus, everything that happened to him is because God loves the world; God
loves everything God made; God loves you and me. If that’s not Good News, I
don’t know what is.
Stephen believed so deeply in Jesus Christ he was willing
to proclaim the Good News with his last breath as he was tortured and killed
for his beliefs. My hope and prayer is that no one ever has to die for their
beliefs. But then I imagine what the world might be like if Stephen and the
other leaders of the Early Church had forfeited their faith. They knew
something that the Church today would be wise to recapture. And if not the
Church, me at least. What Stephen did he did for the world: we remember his
martyrdom because he was motivated by the same love that God has, a love for
the world.
What if the Church today started existing, not for
itself, not for its bottom line or precious buildings, but for love for the
world? What if, every time we made a decision we asked: how does this further
God’s love in the world? What if the Church lived (and maybe died) as Stephen
did, confessing the Good news, confessing love and forgiveness?
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