3rd week in Easter Time, Monday – 15th April 2024 – Acts 6,8-15; Jn 6,22-29
Drawing Line of Differences
In the first reading, Stephen is presented as a model of a believer who accomplishes the works of God. He will be the first person to give his life for Christ. He is the first martyr, the first true witness to the Gospel. Until now, we only heard the apostles, especially Peter and John, working miracles. Now, after the laying on of hands, deacon Stephen is given the same gifts and the same power. Later, we will see deacon Philip doing the same. Stephen believes in Jesus as Saviour, whom God the Father has sent to save world from sin and death. He preaches without fear because he knows that his message is from the Holy Spirit. Stephen’s words and action aroused the displeasure to other Greek-speaking Jews. He takes up the difficult theme of freedom from the old Law of Moses and the end of the old Temple worship. The people, the elders, and the scribes accuse him of “saying things against this holy place and the law.” The parallels between Stephen’s experience and that of the Lord Jesus being accused are strikingly similar. Like Jesus, and because of Jesus, Stephen is “full of grace and power” and he “did great wonders and signs among the people.” He was bold in proclaiming that Jesus was going to destroy the Temple and change the Traditions of Moses. While Stephen’s enemies glared at him with hostility, his own face gleamed “like the face of an angel.” Stephen perceived and expressed in his preaching, the fuller implications of Jesus’ teachings by drawing the difference between Judaism and Christianity.
