1. The constancy of Christian friendship. They did not need the sound of his voice and the echo of his steps to remind them of the duties they owed to him. The friendships induced by Christianity are the firmest and most enduring. Our friend may be no longer on earth, but he lives with Christ and so is still ours.
2. The heroism of Christian friendship. These men were in danger of sharing their friend’s fate. They might have said, “What is the useof risking that now Stephen is dead?” But the instinct of friendship was stronger than the fear of danger, and they went forth confessing that they were followers of Him in whose name Stephen had died. Christian friendship is not influenced by selfish considerations.
3. The practical kindness of Christian friendship. A saint who dies in the midst of saints is sure to have a loving burial. He may be poor, but his claims will not be unheeded.
II. The causes of their lamentation.
1. Their own personal loss. One dear to them had been taken away. Our religion does not chide thetears of the bereaved. “Jesus wept,” and manifested a tender feeling for the hearts of others when He said, “Woman, why weepest thou?”
2. The Church’s loss. Stephen seemed to be needed more than ever. Saul was becoming a terrible opponent, and there was no Stephen to answer him. A pillar strong with truth, and beautiful with love, was overturned when it was wanted to sustain the temple of God. A standard bearer had fallen when foes were gathering thickly about the camp. A shepherd was taken away when the flock was likely to be scattered.
3. The world’s loss. The world could not understand this. It was nothing to the soldier, the merchant, the priest; but it was a far greater calamity than if Caesar had fallen from his throne.
III. The alleviating circumstances. There was no need for the lamentation as far as Stephen was concerned.
1. A little before he died he had a vision of Christ.
2. He died in the calm assurance of a life to come.
3. He died in love and charity with all men. (J. Marratt.)
The burial of Stephen
Theaction of these devout men--
I. Expresses affectionate sorrow for their departed friend. The religion of Christ does not destroy our feelings as men. It makes the already gentle and loving heart more loving and gentle still, and fills the stern, the frozen breast, with warm and generous feeling. What a change it wrought in that young man, at whose feet Stephen’s murderers laid their clothes! The devout men were not yielding to unmanly or unchristian emotions. The religion of Jesus would moderate their grief, but it would not restrain their tears. Jesus Himself wept at the grave of a friend. And Stephen had been their friend.
II. Implies that their sorrow would be chastened by submission to the will of God. They knew who had said, “The hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service.” They also knew who had said, whilst Himself drinking a cup far more bitter than Stephen’s, “O My Father, if this cup may not pass from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done.” And did they not know that that sufferer had left His disciples an example that they should tread in His steps? and that now He was Lord of all, and could dash His enemies in places, like a potter’s vessel? And therefore these devout men would in submission say, amid all their tears, “It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good. The Lord gave--the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.”
III. Infers that they would be influenced by kindest sympathy towards Stephen’s surviving relations. What was their loss compared with the loss sustained by such? The loss of a friend is not so great as the loss of a son--the loss of a father--the loss of a husband. To such the loss would be irreparable, or could only be made up by Him who is better than ten thousand sons, and who has said, “Leave thy fatherless children unto Me, I will provide, and let thy widows trust in Me.” And would not these devout men sympathise with the widow and the orphan and the mother who had lost such a relative as Stephen? “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.”
IV. Leads us to suppose that they could not allow such an occasion to pass away without earnest prayer that this bereavement which the Church had sustained might be sanctified to the church’s interests. The burden of their prayer would probably be, “Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth,” etc. Who can tell what influence they had in the calling of Saul of Tarsus? Would they not also pray, “Lord, teach us to cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, and trust alone in Thee”? And would not these prayers be blended with thanksgivings for the grace given to their departed brother?
V. Suggests the hope of a blessed reunion with their departed friend at the resurrection of the just. They sorrowed not as men without hope. They knew their brother had fallen asleep in Jesus; and surely they believed that them who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.
VI. Would there not be renewed consecration to the service of God? The storm of persecution raged, and they were scattered by its violence--but not as flock that has lost or left the shepherd. No; rather scattered asrays of light, to become the lights of the world, to be as flames of fire in the service of the Saviour (Act_8:4). And He that gave the word went with them, giving effect to the Word of His grace, so that the Word of the Lord had free course, and was glorified. So it ought ever to be. The work of the Lord must be done. It will be done, whether by us or not; but if not, we gain no reward. “Work while it is called to-day--the night cometh in which no man can work.” (P. C. Horton.)
Stephen’s funeral
I. A very select funeral.
1. Pre-eminently select. “Devout men”--not rich, learned, or titled, but good men; those who discharged thoroughly, from the purest motives, all the duties of life.
(1) Virtuous, or true to themselves.
(2) Philanthropic, or true to their fellow-men.
(3) Godly, or true to the Most High. Christians--men of the highest type.
2. Suitably select. The good burying the good. The pious should care for each other to the last.
3. Wholly select. Occasionally funerals are very mixed. Some attend because the dead man had been a good customer; some because they were neighbours; some because of a necessary family connection; some as an expression of readiness to put the deceased out of the way; some from a denominational bias. Stephen’s funeral was unmixed--composed of sincere and practical lovers of God and man. Perhaps heaven’s inhabitants streamed to the balconies of the celestial city and gazed with wonder at the novel sight.
II. A very sad funeral.
1. There have been many non-attendant burials, not an individual present to grieve.
2. There have been largely attended funerals, but the signs of regret were correspondingly small; more talk than tears.
3. Stephen’s funeral was attended by men of sense and sanctity, who rent the air with the cries of their broken hearts.
(1) Their sadness was an expression of homage to the excellencies of the departed.
(a) To great religious intelligence.
(b) To moral and religious character. The gospel lived in him, and he in it.
(c) To usefulness.
(2) An expression of sympathy with the sufferings of the departed. It was the loss of--
(1) A leading man.
(2) In a sudden manner.
(3) By cruel treatment.
(4) When he was most needed. (B. D. Johns.)
The lamentation at Stephen’s funeral
This was something more than a conventional funeral. The people among whom it occurred were given to burial rites of elaborate and studied ceremonial. Like all orientalists, their mourning was chiefly marked by a painstaking and intentional publicity. With them grief for the dead meant baring and beating the breast, sprinkling or sitting in ashes, songs of lamentation, and the employment of mourning women. And so, when the martyred Stephen is buried, the customs are not changed. True, he was not merely a flew, but a Christian; yet the infant Church still clung to the cherished ceremonies of the elder, and what was usual was followed here. It was indeed the hatred and vindictiveness of Judaism which had slain this godly man, yet, when he is dead, the manner of his burial is the usage of Judaism itself. To have changed it would have been to have surrendered his claim as a veritable and loyal Israelite; and doubtless, also, to have grieved and wounded his surviving relatives. All the more because his death had been so cruel and distressing, would they have his burial decent and reverent and painstaking; even as when the nation buries some honoured soldier she surrounds his funeral cortege with every element of pomp and state and ceremony, as though she would atone for the hardships of his bitter and lonely end upon the field of battle by utmost tenderness and reverence in dealing with his lifeless body. And thus it was with the bruised and mangled form of Stephen. The funeral order of his race was carefully observed. But there was this difference--and it comes out with a singular and touching significance in two Greek words, used here only in all the New Testament: the mourning at Stephen’s funeral was the mourning of unaffected feeling, and the attendants who followed him to his grave were not hired mutes nor paid mourners, but grief-stricken and godly men. This scene suggests the thought of the difference that there is in funerals. The Church has one common ritual for all her baptized dead. She does not attempt to discriminate either in her customs or her utterances. She is not a judge with such infallible insight that she can weigh character and prophesy of destiny. Most wisely, therefore, does she use one common office for all her dead, leaving scarce any discretion to her ministry, and uttering one uniform voice to her people. Her language is general, not specific. She writes as Inspiration has written before her, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,” but she utters no verdict of application in connection with their use. She speaks words of Christian hope; but they are coupled with the Scriptural conditions of all Christian hope. In a word, her language is that of Christian faith and trust; and while it is utterly devoid of any specific application of its very general terms, we feel that its tone is only what the tone of anything save a heathen burial ought to be. And yet, when we come to use it, we recognise what a really tremendous difference there may be in even the Church’s funerals. As with Stephen’s burial by the elder Church, there are the same preliminaries, the same customs, the same words, and yet, as there, there may be the widest and most radical difference in what those words and customs express. Have we not all witnessed funerals where even the sublime ritual of the Church seemed powerless to touch the heart or lift the thoughts? With utmost charity, with every willingness to leave the vanished life in the hands of a Love at once deeper and wiser than ours, we cannot bind that life and the Church’s tones together. Somehow, they do not fit into, and form a part of, each other. Verily, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they rest from their labours.” But if they have not lived in the Lord, nor laboured for Him--we may say these questions are useless; but we cannot help asking them. On the other hand, there are other funerals where we use precisely the same ritual; where there is no diversity in usage or custom from what is wonted, unless in the direction of greater simplicity; where merely the Church’s appointed words are said, and no others, and yet where the emotions of our own hearts and the very atmosphere of the whole occasion are utterly and wholly different. There is a deep and widespread sorrow, but it is a grief gilded with light. We listen to the words of inspired hope and promise, and, as we lift our eyes from the bier before us, lo! the clouds are parted, and we see how, to a Christian, the grave is only a low-brewed portal, through which, bending as he passes, he emerges into larger life and freer. (Bp. H. C. Potter.)
