25 January 2017
Text: Matt 19:27-30 (Acts 9:1-22, Gal 1:11-24)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Dear
friends, we have good reason to despair.
Our
culture is in a state of chaos and disarray. In public life, we apparently no longer know
what the difference is between a man and a woman. Political disagreements are settled with
rioting and looting. College students and
administrators cannot abide alternative points of view. We are divided over issues of race and religion
and politics and morality. Traditional
marriage is on life support, and an increasing number of children are raised in
multiple households scared by serial divorces and remarriages.
There
are rumblings of war in our world, and new threats of terrorism that frighten
us nearly every day. Our religious
liberties are under constant assault.
And the massacre of the unborn continues.
Our
churches are getting emptier and emptier – including our own. The Christian gospel is ridiculed, the Bible
is held in contempt, and anything the church has to say is shouted down. We are a shrinking minority and the attacks
upon us become more shrill and fierce every day. Around the world, there are
more martyrs in our own era than ever were in the days of the Roman Empire.
Yes,
indeed, we have good reason to despair.
But
thanks be to God that He is not merely a God of reason, but of love. For love defies reason. A computer can be programmed to follow logic
and reason and make decisions by counting the cost. But a machine cannot be programmed to count
the costs – and then do what love would do: to at-times defy reason for the
sake of the beloved. And this is what
God has done for us in Christ Jesus and in the cross.
In
times like these, we need to reflect on St. Paul. We need to not only remember
his courage in preaching the Gospel to Jews and Greeks, to rich and poor, to
kings and high-ranking officials and soldiers and synagogue rulers, his
missionary journeys all over the known world, planting churches and teaching, calling
to mind his heroic steadfastness as a confessor even in prison, being beaten
for the truth, and even as a martyr who died for the Lord, we also need to
remember when he was known as “Saul” and was an enemy of God.
Saul
was a former name of the man who led a former life: “breathing threats and murder
against the disciples of the Lord.” Like
many in our culture today, Saul hated Christianity, and was doing anything and
everything in his power to eradicate it – even having men and women and
children bound in chains and arrested.
In
Paul’s own words regarding his “former life,” he says: “I persecuted the church
of God violently and tried to destroy it.”
But
something happened that shocked the world, the church, and most of all, Saul
himself. While on a road trip to
Damascus, Jesus Himself appeared to Saul, as a blazing light from the heavens “flashed
around him” and knocked him down. And
our Lord Jesus Christ Himself spoke to His violent enemy who was to become his
passionate apostle: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
Jesus
isn’t expecting an answer. We know the
answer: unbelief, pride, a lack of respect for the life and liberties of those
whom he arrested. In short: sin. Sin is what makes unbelievers, consumed with
hatred, attack Christians and the faith itself.
But
Jesus is now calling upon Paul to repent, to repent of his unbelief by heeding
the voice and believing that Jesus is the Christ, by turning away from his
pride, by being humbled to beg for help as a blind man, to leave behind violence
and persecution of the Christians by becoming a Christian himself, one who
would himself suffer for the faith and for Jesus.
And
in this one moment of God’s choosing, this single encounter with Jesus,
everything changed. The men and women
and children no longer had to fear Saul but rather could come to receive him as
a brother and as a father.
For
the Lord has changed Saul into a believer, a confessor, and soon to be, a
preacher of the Gospel. For Paul’s eyes
were opened, and He received the Holy Spirit. He was baptized. And he was strengthened by “taking food.” And he took the food of the baptized
Christian, the Holy Supper of the very Lord who converted him, called him, and
gave him a new direction in life, a Supper he would likewise share with those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
The
Lord himself spoke of the convert Paul: “He is a chosen instrument of Mine, to
carry My name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.”
For
no matter how dreary and gloomy things were for the early church, no matter how
much societal pressure from the Romans and how much political pressure from the
Jews they were subject to, no matter the treachery and fear, the night raids
and secret informers, the chains and the dungeons – the Lord God remained in
charge. He had not abandoned His people;
He had not fallen asleep at the switch. God allowed things to become dire as a way to
prove that they were in fact not dire. This
is an easy situation to fix for our merciful Lord.
Paul’s
conversion not only paved the way for new churches to spring up across the Mediterranean
world, but it also demonstrated that God is not subject to the whims and
hatreds of men. Our Lord Jesus called
Paul out on his persecutions, and He converted Paul, brought him into the
church for a reason: that he might be a blessing, a bringer of Good News to all
people.
Paul’s
conversion is our conversion, dear friends.
For just as Jesus came to Paul on the way to Damascus and disrupted his
life forever, this same Jesus comes to us where we are: as babies brought to
the font, as adults who hear the Gospel for the first time, as children with an
innocent trust in the Word, or even as an elderly person on his deathbed seeking
the peace that passes all understanding in exchange for a lifetime of sin. For
all of us were converted to the faith, whether we were only minutes old, or after
a century or more of walking this earth.
All
of us were on the side of the devil until we were exorcised by the holy water
of baptism and called by name by Jesus, and we were given a new name as well:
the name “Christian,” one redeemed by the sacrificial Lamb, one washed clean in
His blood, one declared righteous and forgiven and part of the church that was our
enemy prior to our conversion.
For
every single Christian has been converted and won over. Christians are not born that way, but they are
born again, and like unto St. Paul, once we are called into the kingdom by the King,
“something like scales” fall from our eyes. We see reality as it is. We are changed, transformed, yes, converted
from sinner to saint, from dead to alive, from an enemy of the cross to a
friend of God.
And
so, dear friends, while we have reason to despair, we have three things greater
than reason: faith and hope and love. We
have faith in Him who offers us hope for eternity, and the love of Christ
Himself who gave Himself for us even while we were yet His enemies. And those who attack the church now may yet
one day prompt us to likewise say: “He who once tried to persecute us is now
preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”
And
the Lord Jesus reminds us not to despair, but to cling to faith, come what may,
saying, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on
His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
“O
Lord, for Paul’s conversion,
We
bless Your name today;
Come
shine within our darkness,
And
guide us on our way.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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