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“Unlikely Heroes of the Faith: Paul
Acts 9:1-22

 

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas

Christ the King Sunday–Last Sunday of the Church Year—November 22, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

This morning we conclude our Fall Sermon Series on “Unlikely Heroes of the Faith.”  Maybe sometimes you don’t feel or act like what we think a “saint” should be, a hero of the faith.  It may surprise you to learn that the great saints of old often felt the same way.  This morning we consider today’s Reading from the Book of Acts and the dramatic conversion of PAUL.

A few years ago a fascinating book was published listing 101 of the most influential personalities in history.  You probably are very familiar with most of them.  The brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes is number 8.  Number 51 is a famous spy named James Bond. Soldier G.I. Joe is honored with number 48; a tall blonde named Barbie comes in at number 43; and a mouse named Mickey is number 18.  Of course, the title of the book is actually, “The 101 Most Influential People Who NEVER Lived.”

A REAL LIFE character from history who ALMOST never existed is the Apostle St. Paul.  Because, he did not start out as St. Paul the Apostle, but as Saul the persecutor. 

People often assume that his name was changed for some reason to mark his conversion, but actually he would have been called both SAUL and PAUL throughout his whole life.  Saul was his given, Hebrew name, after the famous Old Testament king.  But, he did not grow up the Hebrew homeland, because his family had emigrated a few hundred miles north, where he grew up among Gentiles in the Roman city of Tarsus.  To Gentiles the name Saul was unusual and actually difficult for them to pronounce.  So, they just called him by the Roman name Paul.  In the same way, many of us had ancestors named Johann, Heinrich, and Franz, who after they immigrated to America became John, Henry and Frank.  So, there is no real significance to his two names.  After his conversion he traveled and worked mostly among Gentiles, and therefore went mostly by his Roman name, Paul.

We could hardly over-emphasize the significance of Paul’s conversion, not only in the realm of religion, but actually in the whole history of the western world.  Several years ago the magazine “U. S. News and World Report” identified the Conversion of St. Paul as THE most significant single event in shaping modern western civilization.  And, of course, they were not thinking of his spiritual impact, but simply his impact on the life and culture of western society.

Have you ever had things all planned out in your life, but then they didn’t turn out the way you planned or thought they would?  As Paul left on the road to Damascus that day, he could have never imagined how radically his life would be changed, or how radically he would the change the world.

He had his life all planned out, and it certainly didn’t include devoting himself to spreading he Christian faith and being the leading Apostle of Jesus Christ.  Paul says in Galatians that mystified Christians back in Jerusalem said in wonderment, “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy!”

We know more about Paul’s life history than any other character in the New Testament except Jesus.  At various places, Paul himself tells us his life story: “I am a . . . Hebrew of Hebrews . . . born in Tarsus . . .  a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. . .  Under Gamaliel at Jerusalem I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was zealous . . .  I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.”

Paul had gone to Jerusalem to study under one of the greatest rabbis of the day.  People were expecting big things of young Saul.  He was on the fast track to becoming a famous rabbi himself, and a “Very Important Person” in Hebrew Society.  Paul had his life all planned out.  But, then Christ reached into his life and completely changed and redirected it. 

Paul ended up writing 13 out of the 27 New Testament books, and some of his most famous, most familiar words are from Romans: “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him.”  Paul was not speaking those words in the abstract.  He was speaking from the heart, from his own powerful, personal experience.  For, everything he had planned for himself, everything he was counting on in life, had been pulled out from under him that day on the road to Damascus. 

Yet, in Philippians, Paul looks back on the life he had planned for himself, and says: “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider it all dung.”  There could be no greater example than Paul’s own life story of the comforting promise, “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him.”

Paul first makes an appearance in the New Testament in the Book of Acts, sometime during the first year after the events of Holy Week, at the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr: “They all rushed at Stephen, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.  And Saul was there, giving approval to his death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church . . .  As for Saul, he began to destroy the church.”

In today’s Epistle Reading, Paul says that, spiritually, he is like “one abnormally born,” or as another version puts it, “who was born at the wrong time.”  What Paul means is that he was “BORN AGAIN” at the wrong time.  For, although he lived at the same time and in the same general location as Jesus during his earthly life, Paul did not know him, or have faith in him then. 

When Paul says he was “born at the wrong time,” it’s an expression of regret not only because he initially rejected and persecuted Christ and his church, but also that he just missed being an eyewitness of Christ during his earthly life.  Where was Paul during the years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and especially during the events of Holy Week?  Probably back in his hometown of Tarsus.  With no mass media or modern communications, Paul was “so close yet so far,” ignorant of these momentous events taking place right then in the Holy Land just a few hundred miles away, events which shortly would completely transform Paul’s own life.

Paul definitely considered himself an unlikely hero of the faith, that HE should be chosen to be an Apostle.  As he says in today’s Epistle Reading, “I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”  How unworthy he was to be a leader and hero of the faith is a recurring theme of Paul.  He says in 1st Timothy, “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man”; and in Galatians, “I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it”; and in Acts he even confesses, “I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death.”

In the story of Saul the persecutor becoming St. Paul the Apostle, we see the pattern of Christian conversion.  The blinding of Paul on the road to Damascus, and then recovery of his sight, and complete change of his life, is symbolic of us all.

As a Pharisee, indeed a top student and rabbi, Paul certainly didn’t consider himself to be in any way spiritually blind.  It was about men like him that Jesus said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You blind guides!”

Paul was quite confident and quite proud that he was one of the few truly enlightened ones.  But, then: “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’  ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’  The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.  Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.”

You know what it’s like to come out of a darkened room into the light of day, maybe first thing in the morning or following a movie?  The light hurts your eyes at first, and it takes a while to adjust.  That’s how it was spiritually for Saul the persecutor, when he was suddenly surrounded by the blazing light of God from heaven.

As far as Paul was concerned, he was already walking in the light of the Lord.  Indeed, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel Reading, Paul thought he was serving the Lord by persecuting the church.  So, what a shock for him to be confronted by the true light, the Light of Jesus Christ, far brighter than any he had known; to realize that he was, in fact, walking in spiritual darkness.  As he wrote 30 years later in 1st Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”

The blinding of Paul symbolizes that by nature all of us are trapped in spiritual darkness and blindness.  Paul put it this way in Ephesians, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”

Just as Paul was on the road to Damascus to bring terror and destruction and death, all of us were on the road to receive terror and destruction and death in hell.  But, then Christ reached into Paul’s life and completely changed and redirected it.  In the same way, Christ reached into your life and completely changed and redirected it from the punishment of hell to the glory of heaven.  Paul put it this way in Colossians, “The Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.  For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”  That’s what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus.  Jesus rescued him and he crossed over from death to life.  In the same way, that’s what happened to you on the road to hell.  Jesus rescued you, and you have crossed over from death to life.

Paul was led along in his blindness by those who were with him.  Perhaps in the same way your parents carried you to the Baptismal font when you were still a baby, and brought you worship when you were a child.  Another pastor recently told me about a couple who had visited his church several times. When he went to visit them he was surprised that there were several children about ten to fifteen years old who had never been with this couple in church.  They told him that they had never taken their children to church, because they want them to decide for themselves.  But, like the friends of Paul, who led him along in his blindness, God wants you to lead your children, and others, to Christ.

Ananias is symbolic of the ministers of Christ’s church.  Just as Christ called Ananias to proclaim the Word to Paul and baptize him, Christ calls the ministers of his church to proclaim the Word and administer the Sacraments.  As Paul told the pastors at Ephesus, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God.”

The food which Paul immediately eats that gives him renewed physical strength is symbolic of the spiritual food, which Paul probably also partook of for the first time that day, the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  Paul later wrote in 1st Corinthians, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? . . .  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

The scales which fall from Paul’s eyes symbolize putting off the old sinful self, as Paul wrote in Ephesians, “Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, and be made new in the attitude of your minds.  Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Paul’s three days of blindness symbolizes Christ’s’ three days in the tomb, and therefore being united with Christ in his death and resurrection.  Paul puts it this way in Romans, “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  In Baptism you are so united with Christ and his death and resurrection that all the benefits of his death and resurrection are credited to you.  You have forgiveness, salvation, eternal life, you are completely right with God again.

The comedian Groucho Marx famously said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”  That was the attitude of Saul, the persecutor and Pharisee.  He thought the church should be an exclusive club.  Except, his attitude was, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept YOU as a member.”  Saul thought he was okay.  It was everyone else who was unworthy.  That was why he persecuted the Christians.  How dare they claim to be as holy and righteous as HIM, a strict Pharisee?  They hadn’t earned it.  They didn’t deserve to members of the club. 

We still fall into that attitude.  Thinking the Church is an exclusive club.  But, that’s the wrong attitude of Saul, the persecutor and Pharisee, not the changed attitude of St. Paul the Apostle.  He puts it this way in Philippians, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection . . .  not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

“I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”  “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”  Of all the unlikely heroes of the faith, there is no greater gap than between Saul the persecutor and St. Paul the Apostle.  He says in 1st Timothy that this is a comforting example for us: “For that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”

Amen.

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