LORD, HAVE MERCYReading: Acts 6: 8-15; 7: 51-60
Stephen must have been an extraordinary person. In the space of a few sentences Luke describes him as a man ‘full of faith and the Holy Spirit’ and ‘a man full of God’s grace and power.’ He was one of seven selected by the apostles to look after the poorest believers, their chief task being the daily distribution of food to those who were destitute. A dispute had arisen about this practice with accusations of discrimination. The apostles wisely realised that they needed to delegate so that they would have more time for preaching and teaching. Stephen had more gifts than that of administration. It is said that he performed amazing miracles and signs among the people. Naturally this would have aroused curiosity, resentment, jealousy and outrage among those who were not followers of the Way. These could not match Stephen in wisdom, empowered by the Spirit as he was, so they decided to have him done away with. They got some men to present trumped up charges against him. Once again, as so short a time before with Jesus, the elders, teachers of religious law and the crowds believed the lies. Stephen was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin. He probably knew at this point that his fate was sealed, but he was not going to go ‘down’ without witnessing to the awesome vision that God had in his mind and heart since before the creation of the world. It was at this moment, before he had even started speaking that the eyes of every one in the Council were riveted on him, almost in spite of themselves. His face, so Luke tells us, had become as bright as an angel’s.
Often when people don’t understand they criticize, judge and condemn, and their negativity and misplaced anger prevent them from hearing what actually could be a gift to them had they the generosity of spirit to really listen with both the heart and the head. This was what happened here as Stephen, using their own Jewish story and revered historical leaders, showed how again and again they, as a people, had rebelled against God. He accused them of being heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Right throughout their history they had persecuted the prophets. In the present era they had killed the great forerunner of the Messiah, John the Baptist and now, their worst sin – they had betrayed and murdered the Son of God. Stephen’s ‘defence’ was really a going out on the offensive to claim the whole world for God and not just those who obeyed the Jewish law. Stephen was actually also incarnating the words of Jesus to his disciples some time before. He had said to them, “You will be handed over to the courts and beaten in the synagogues. And you must stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. This will be your opportunity to tell them about me – yes, to witness to the world. When you are arrested, don’t worry about what to say in your defence, because you will be given the right words at the right time. For it won’t be you doing the talking – it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
His final statement (he was seeing in the Spirit) was too much for them to bear. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. The punishment for blasphemy was death by stoning. In order for them to aim with greater ferocity and accuracy, they took off their outer garments and laid them at the feet of a young man. This man’s name was Saul. He was a zealous upholder of the Jewish law and had a brilliant mind, obviously a leader among people. He approved of the murder and probably was urging the perpetrators on. Even as he lay dying, Stephen was praying. After having committed his spirit into the hands of Jesus, his final prayer is one of forgiveness, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin. Don’t hold it against them. Lord, have mercy.”
Now, it doesn’t actually spell this out in the scriptures, but if we read between the lines what actually happened, if we believe that no prayer goes unheard, and certainly not one like this, was that God said, “All right, Saul. I have heard the prayer of my faithful and beloved servant Stephen. Because he has asked for mercy, I forgive you, but now you’ve got to take over where he left off!” This is exactly what happened. Read on into Chapter Eight and you will find that the persecution of the believers increases, so they scatter and take the Good News to other places. Read on into Chapter Nine and we are right into one of the most dramatic encounters of the risen Jesus with a human being ever recorded. Some speak of the Damascus Road experience; others of Saul’s conversion. Paul, as he later became known, was to become the great missionary to the Gentile world. He was the first to bring the gospel to Europe. In fact, with the eyes of faith, it is not too much to claim that, almost two thousand years later, the reason we are meeting in Faith and Friendship Groups this very evening is because Stephen prayed that prayer of forgiveness, God responded and Paul was converted and commissioned to actually fulfil the vision that Stephen had declared before the Sanhedrin!
We haven’t even begun to tap into the enormous power that there is in forgiveness, power to let healing flow down through the generations, power to effect incredible change in the present moment, power to offer a hope-filled future to generations yet unborn. “Lord, have mercy on us for the times we have withheld it.” Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is a decision. Do you think that Stephen felt like forgiving as the very life was being stoned out of him? No – he chose to do so as an act of willing obedience, and then God weighed in to effect the change in Saul. If we waited until we felt like forgiving, we might wait from now until Kingdom come and never do it and in human terms we would be perfectly justified, especially if the hurt or wound has been unspeakably horrific. We need to reach the point of deciding to do so, not in our own strength but through the power of the Name of Jesus, and, when we do so, then God weighs in with power to effect the change. What an enormous underused resource we have, but we can never be forced to employ it. The holy ground of each person’s unique pain must always be respected. “Lord, have mercy on us for the times when we have sought to force or pressurize people to forgive before they are ready."