Acts 9 1-22 Mark
Conversion of St. Paul
Epiphany 3
Acts 9:1-22
January 25, 2004
“Religious Conversion”
No one questions the zeal of Saul, few question his motives, and no one wants to get in his way. This is a man who earnestly believes in the mission he is on. He's no reckless vigilante, but one who has gotten the approval and documentation from his superiors. There's little doubt that much of the population agrees with him; he's on solid ground, there. But Saul isn't real worried about public approval; first and foremost, he is operating on the utter conviction that what he is doing is God's will. If God is for him, who will be against him?
So Saul departs on his first, and last, missionary journey as a Pharisee. His mission is to find anyone who calls on the name of Jesus Christ; and when he finds them, he is to arrest them and haul them back to the chief priests for a trial. If they have to die, so be it, because they're destructive to religion. Saul's a great admirer of Moses and the law, and he's based his whole existence on keeping the rules. God spoke to Moses directly on Mt.Sinai from His cloud of glory-what could be better? How good to be Moses, or at least to follow those same rules. But these followers of the Way, as they're called, have got a different, destructive message. They teach faith in Jesus Christ, who was crucified and supposedly raised from the dead. Rather than insist on perfect obedience, they declare that Christ forgives them for their sin. Saul will not tolerate this, for it threatens the rules he lives by; and Saul fervently believes that his way is God's way. In the name of the one true God, he's going to destroy Christianity.
It's on the road to Damascus that Saul gets to be like Moses: The glorious Lord speaks to him from the midst of a bright light. But it's no comfort at all: The Lord identifies Himself as "Jesus, whom you are persecuting"-the very one he's set out to destroy. When Jesus leaves Saul along the road, Saul is blind and in despair. When he left Jerusalem, he thought he was God's instrument, doing the Lord's will. Before he gets to Damascus, he finds out that he is God's enemy and persecutor. As Saul is led to Damascus, his entire life and creed crumbled to dust.
Three days later, the Lord speaks to a man named Ananias and sends him to Saul. Ananias is less than enthused to visit a man who has planned his death, but the Lord is insistent: He tells Ananias to go and make a disciple, baptizing and teaching him what the Lord has said. So the reluctant Pastor Ananias, called by God, goes to Saul. He lays his hands on him, speaks God's Word, and Saul can see. He baptizes Saul, and Saul is forgiven.
From there, behold the grace of God at work in Saul. The former persecutor is not one to crawl into a hole, run away from the situation. Rather, by God's grace, he goes to the synagogues and preaches that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Once, he used Moses and the laws as his reason to stamp out Christianity. From now on, time and time again during his life, he will show how Moses pointed to Christ.
And he will go on more missionary journeys as Saul, the Lord's foremost missionary to the Gentiles, to kings, and to the Jews. He will preach to Jews in the synagogue wherever his travels take him. He will spar with the intellectuals of Athens about their many gods, and he'll work with the free-wheeling, promiscuous Corinthians, too. He'll testify before rulers like Felix, Festus, Agrippa, even Caesar himself. He'll even set his sights on the far reaches of Spain. He will proclaim Christ to different races and different social classes. And throughout his preaching and his epistles, the message is the same. He proclaims Christ crucified and risen. He emphasizes the importance of pure doctrine and Holy Baptism. He writes about the Lord's Supper and insists that it be kept according to God's Word.
Saul knows the importance of pure doctrine; when his biblical teaching was impure, he used it to kill Christians, but the pure Word of grace saved him. He knows the importance of the Lord's Gospel and means of grace, because that's where God delivers salvation. That's what Saul would be all about: Keep the Lord's Word pure with the focus on Christ and His means of grace; and get that message out to the ends of the earth.
Saul is converted. The persecutor becomes the preacher. The surprising element of this event is the realization that the conversion of Saul was the conversion of a radically religious person. Saul was the best of believers. Saul was a master of morality. He lived out every letter of the law. He was a superior student of the Scriptures. He was a dedicated defender of the demands of the law. He staunchly defended the temple worship and the sacrificial system instituted by God Himself. Yet - he was converted.
For most of us, this fact undermines the very foundation of our understanding of the concept of conversion. From the social point of view, we associate conversion with sinners who live immorally outside of the will of God. From the intellectual point of view, we think that conversion is what happens to unbelievers. From the missionary point of view, we think that conversion is concerned with pagans, heathens, and idol worshipers. Religious conversion, in general, is for the ungodly, the wicked, and - sinners. The character of Saul fits into none of these categories. Saul's conversion was the conversion of an enthusiastic believer who was already totally committed to God. Saul's single ambition in life was to be a dedicated and an obedient servant of God's holy Law. Yet - Saul was converted. It was a conversion from death under the Law to a birth of new and eternal life in the Gospel.
There are several things that we should note about Saul’s Conversion to understand the grace of God working in our lives. Though Saul’s conversion has some dramatic elements, in many ways the way that God converts us all is the same.
First, we must focus on the most important fact. Just as it is true that Saul was not searching for God, and was even opposing Him, God chose Saul to be the recipient of grace through Jesus Christ. It was Jesus Christ, the one who suffered and died for the sins of all people, the sins of Saul, which seeks out the one who persecutes Him. God chose Saul even though he was doing every thing he could not to deserve it. In the same way God chose each and every one of you. The Bible say that while we were sinners, enemies of God, Christ died for us and chose us to be His.
It is a wonderful thing to be chosen. Because you are chosen you do not have to wonder if you are acceptable in God’s eyes. You don’t have to wonder if you have done enough things right to earn merit with Him. You don’t have to wonder if you have been religious enough to please Him. That is because following all of God Laws, even to the best of our ability, will not save us. Only faith in the one that He sent, Jesus Christ our Lord, can save. It saved Paul and it will save us, nothing more and nothing less will do.
Second, it is important how we understand and interpret the Word of God. In fact, as Lutheran we teach that God’s Word alone can rightly interprets itself. To ere in the interpretation of God’s Word leads to a wrong understanding that may ultimately undermine our faith. Saul’s whole life was based on the Scriptures, the Bible. A person would think that that is a good thing. Yet that which is good, done wrongly, can lead astray. Saul understood God only from a legalistic way, trying to follow God’s Law to please God. That is as far as he went. After His conversion he began to understand all of God’s Word. He began to understand what Jesus said, “that the Scriptures testify to me”, that is point specifically to Jesus as the one who would fulfill the Law of God, and once fulfilled, end its coercive nature, replacing it with God’s grace. We live in a day when God’s Word is misused, abused and interpreted incorrectly. Most of this misuse and abuse comes from the religious world. They abuse takes many forms. It is taught that man’s reason holds authority over God’s word. It is taught that only some parts of the Bible are relevant for us today. It is taught that men wrote the Bible and not God through men and therefore it is full of errors. It is taught that the mighty acts of God and the miracles of Christ are fables. Finally, it is taught that Jesus Christ did not physically rise from the dead. With such interpretations the power of God’s Word, even God Himself is undermined.
We too fall into temptation of not rightly understanding God’s Word as we apply it to our lives. We are tempted to pick and chose pieces of God’s Word by which we live our lives. Like Saul we exalt the practices of religion rather than its main substance. We think that we can please God with our own actions and religious observances. We fall into the temptation of stressing God’s commandments and following them because that is what our Bibles tell us to do. We think “Do this, don’t do that”, that is what the Christian religion is about. For such things we wrongly expect some divine pat on the back and an “at a boy” from God. God is not impressed. God wants us to understand His Word in light of what God has done, saving the world through Christ. He looks only for faith in His Son. He looks at us to see if we trust in His death on the cross alone for our salvation. This alone pleases God. Having such a faith and filled with the Holy Spirit our lives do become characterized by obedience to the will of our Heavenly Father.
Lastly, our conversions are similar to Saul’s in that God comes to us through His Word and the means of grace and this is where forgiveness is found. Jesus may have come directly to Saul but Saul is directed to God’s grace through the man Ananias. Luther explains it this way, “All though He speaks with Paul directly from heaven above, God does not intend to put away the pastoral office or establish something extraordinary for him, instead he directs him to the Parish pastor in the city where he world hear and learn what he is supposed to do. Our Lord God does not purpose some special thing for each individual person, but give the whole world, one person like the next, His baptism and gospel. Through these means we are to learn how to be saved….Paul receives his sight, his insight, and the Holy Spirit through the ministry of Ananias.” And thus the Lord still comes to us today in the very same Gospel and through the waters of our own Baptisms and through the Lord’s Supper.
Conclusion: The account of Saul’s conversion and salvation is a wonderful story. It demonstrated for us the wondrous working of our Lord God as He converts this foremost persecutor of Christ and His Church, and out of a wolf makes a gentle lamb for our salvations sake. Through this man God teaches us about His grace in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. Amen.
