The Face of Stephen

     The face of Stephen was like that of an angel (Acts 6:15). His accusers hated the peace he exuded. They hated the power and faith which poured from him (6:8) and made his works undeniable. He was a man full of the Holy Spirit, content to be a waiter. He was a man whose eyes were fixed on eternity.

What amazed me thoroughly this week as I took a closer look at Stephen was that his death was so similar to our Lord Jesus Christ's.

Acts 7 talks of Stephen committing his Spirit, the self-same spirit of Christ, unto Jesus. Jesus also committed His Spirit unto His Father when all was finished on the cross.

Stephen asked the Lord not to charge his perpetrators with their sin, because even after all the signs Christ performed and his apostles continued in, many of the Jews refused such a lowly Messiah. They didn't know whom they were coming against. Jesus did likewise, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." (Luke 23:34)

But there is something else which is even more astounding than both of these similarities. It is the contrast between the face of Stephen, alight with the glory of the Lord, and the face of Christ in horrible agony.

Stephen looked towards heaven and saw His Lord standing, waiting to receive Him and looking upon the faces of Stephens perpetrators with vengeance. But Jesus, the Son of God, had to gaze on His Father's back. There was no comfort in His agony.  There was a deep and necessary betrayal. There was a precise separation from the One who took on the fullness of everything accursed unto becoming a curse himself and the Holy and undefiled Father.

And think of this! Jesus still trusted His Father; He still hoped in and knew His Father's redemption even in that moment of disowning His Son. It was absolutely the only way to salvation. If there had been any other, the Son would have never been asked to shrink to so vile a state.

Jesus bore the wrath of His Father that now, we might always look to the Father for light and salvation.  There is not a moment that will ever separate us from the thorough blood of Christ. There is not a spot of sin that remains on us in the Father's sight. We may forever look to the Father for forgiveness, approval and hope...