The game of Jenga is not a picture of what the church is meant to be - though there have been times when the life of the church has been like Jenga. Peter describes the church like this, "Come to the Lord, the living stone… Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple…"
Today's story about Stephen tells about stones and witnesses. Here the witnesses had told lies about Stephen. They were the ones required by Jewish law to throw the death-giving stones at the victim.
But Stephen was a living stone - part of the good strong building of the church - and he was a witness too.
It is so simple being a witness. All you have to do is be there at the right time and you are a witness! Much of our TV news this past week has been about witnesses - witnesses of the Port Arthur massacre. For some witnesses, what has happened has been too terrible for them to say anything. But most of them have needed to "get it out" - talk about it.
The disciples of Jesus had been with him for three-and-a-half years now. They had heard his teaching, seen him healing the sick, watched him die on the cross and seen him alive from the dead. So, when Jesus was giving his final instructions in Luke 24, he said about them, "You are witnesses of these things." They had been there. They had seen them. They knew these facts were true.
Other people had been witnesses too. They had noted the authority by which he taught the people. They knew well that he had healed the sick.
And there were other witnesses to the Easter Sunday events too. The guard knew but weren't telling - they were paid money to stay silent (Mt. 28.11-15). But this group of cringing cowards suddenly became willing to risk their lives for their conviction that Jesus had truly risen from the dead. The story that they had stolen the body didn't make sense of what they had been and what they became!
At the end of Luke, Jesus is saying, "You are witnesses of these things..." And at the beginning of Acts, we hear Jesus saying, "But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be witnesses for me..." They already had the evidence. What were they going to do with it?
Telling the truth about Jesus in the city where he had just been executed held real dangers for them. But, after Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, they would be witnesses - announcing the facts, telling out the evidence that Jesus was alive, calling for repentance and a change of life from all their hearers…
So a witness is not just a person who sees and hears, but one who tells what he has seen and heard.
And on the day of Pentecost, Peter says, "God raised this very Jesus from death, and we are all witnesses to this fact" (2.32) - we know it to be true and we are telling you that it is true! And Peter's message in the Temple after the healing of the lame man - "You killed the one who leads to life, but God raised him from death - and we are witnesses to this" (3.15). Taken before the Jewish Council because they had been continuing to preach in the name of Jesus - "We must obey God, not men. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from death, after you had killed him by nailing him to a cross. God raised him to his right-hand side as Leader and Saviour, to give the people of Israel the opportunity to repent and have their sins forgiven. We are witnesses to these things - we and the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to those who obey him" (5.29-32).
Now it would be so easy for us to get the wrong idea - to think that the task of being witnesses was just for the twelve apostles. Not so - the apostles had a special witness to give, but all believers were to be witnesses. All who have received Jesus as their Saviour and Lord have a unique witness to give to his reality, grace and power in their lives. All need to be able to speak out the truth of God and of what he has done in his Son Jesus Christ.
At the beginning of Acts 6, we are made aware of a particular problem in the early Church. Practical help was being given to Christian widows (there was no social security in those days) and the Greek-speaking Jewish believers believed that their widows were being neglected. So seven helpers were appointed to be in charge of this distribution so that the apostles "will give our full time to prayer and the work of preaching" (v.4).
One of those appointed was Stephen - described as "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit" (v.5). Besides his work of helping, Stephen was a powerful witness to the Lord Jesus. (So too, by the way, was Philip, one of the other helpers - Acts 8.4ff.) When some Jews from the outlying provinces started arguing with Stephen, he spoke with such wisdom that they could not refute him. Instead of accepting the truth of what Stephen was saying, they bribed some men to spread the word, "We heard him speaking against Moses and against God!" (v.11) They stirred up the people, the elders and the teachers of the Law to a point where they seized Stephen and brought him before the Council. Then they arranged for false witnesses to say, "This man is always talking against our sacred Temple and the Law of Moses. We heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will tear down the Temple and change all the customs which have come down to us from Moses!" (vv.l3-14)
Stephen's defence was a bold statement of what God had done in their nation's history and the ways in which their ancestors had refused to obey the Lord. Now he charges them - the descendants - with the same rebellious spirit. "How stubborn you are! How heathen your hearts, how deaf you are to God's message! You are just like your ancestors: you too have always resisted the Holy Spirit! Was there any prophet that your ancestors did not persecute? They killed God's messengers, who long ago announced the coming of his righteous Servant. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You are the ones who received God's law, that was handed down by angels - yet you have not obeyed it!" (7.51-53)
That really stirs their anger. But Stephen goes on. Looking up, he has a glimpse into heaven itself - "Look! I see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right-hand side of God!" (v.56) You killed Jesus, but he is alive and exalted at God's right hand!
So Stephen was taken out of the city and stoned to death. We are told, "The witnesses left their cloaks in the care of a young man named Saul" (v.58). (This is where Saul, better known to us a Paul, enters the story.) The old rule said that the witnesses were to throw the first stones (Deut.l7.7). So the bribed liars and the crowd who had heard and rejected the word of Stephen took him out to eliminate him. These "witnesses" stoned to death Stephen, the witness of Jesus.
And so the Greek word for "witness" has become our English word "martyr" - a person who bears witness to Jesus even to the point of death. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. His last two prayers remind us of his Lord - "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" and "Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!"
When Jesus had asked his disciples, "Who do you say I am?" Peter had answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus had said, "I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it" (Mt.16.15-18).
I am sure Peter remembered that when he wrote that Jesus is the living Stone and he wants us - people made alive through him - to come as living stones to be built into a spiritual temple.
One of those stones was Stephen. What about you? Put your trust in Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. Then you become a living stone too - and a witness with something to talk about. He wants to build you into his spiritual temple, the church. Come! Come to him!
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