Daily Devotional

The day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day, a secular holiday celebrated in parts of the British Commonwealth, including Canada, the country of my birth. Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants -- a day when they received a special Christmas box from their masters. After a hard day’s work on Christmas Day, the servants would go home on Boxing Day to give Christmas boxes to their own families. It later became a time when people used to “box up” gifts to give to the poor.
 
Today Boxing Day is primarily a day off where many return unwanted gifts and shop at the end-of-the-year sales. Some of us think it is a time for people to “box” their way into the best parking places and the fight their way to the front of the line at the crowded stores and restaurants. After all, that’s the “post-Christmas” spirit!  

Although historians disagree on the exact origin of Boxing Day, it is thought to have grown out of longstanding British traditions of charitable giving and goodwill—practices especially associated with the Christian festival of Saint Stephen's Day, which is celebrated on December 26th. Stephen, as many of you know, was a Christian deacon in Jerusalem around the time of Christ’s resurrection. In Acts, Chapter 7, we find him before the Jewish Supreme Court (The Sanhedrin) defending his belief in the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. I have stood many times at the Lion’s Gate in the Northeast corner of the Temple Mount. It was there, we believe, Stephen was stoned to death. It was also there that Saul of Tarsus, a young Jewish zealot and hater of Christians, held the cloak of this first Christian martyr. After his own dramatic and life-changing conversion to Christ, the apostle Paul would bear witness of a young man who was willing to give his life for Christ. He was, like his Savior on that cruel Roman cross, willing to forgive those who were about to take his life (cf. Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60)

So, what is our response on this day of remembrance? We need to do more than “box” our way through the crowds. We need more than a “post-Christmas” nap? Why not take some time today to do as Stephen did?  

1. Why not give to the poor and help the needy, especially those who least expect it? 
2. Why not present your “faith story” to someone, even those who may not want to hear it? 
3. Why not forgive someone who needs your forgiveness, whether they know it or not? 
4. Why not present yourself as a willing sacrifice, as a form of private worship?

Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  

Happy Boxing Day! Have a blessed St. Stephen’s Day!