Encountering Jesus
Readings: Acts 9. 1-22, Galatians 1. 11-16
I wonder who you think would be the most unlikely convert in our day? What would convince you that they had truly come to faith?
Saul, or Paul as he is more often called, is one of the most unlikely people to come to faith in Jesus. He has busied himself with the task of stamping out this new sect who belong to ‘the Way’, what Christians were called before the latter name stuck. He’s travelling the country rounding them up. He’s breathing murderous threats. He’s dragging them into prison. In his own words, as we heard in his letter to the Galatians, he was intent on destroying the Church. If there was anyone the fledgling Church feared, it was Paul. And in some ways their fears may be justified from a human perspective, he seems set to wipe them out.
But God has other ideas, God sees his zeal, misplaced as it was, and chooses to turn that zeal for good. And it happens in the most dramatic fashion, probably because nothing less dramatic would convince him. The risen Jesus appears to Saul whilst he’s enroute to round up more Christians, and changes his life forever. Paul encounters Jesus, and his whole life is turned on its head.
True faith is marked by encounter with the risen Jesus, that’s at the heart of it. We can learn all about God, we can study the Bible, we can try to live good lives, it’s what Paul was busy doing. He was a Pharisee, well versed in the Scriptures. In Philippians chapter 3 Paul points out that as far as the Law was concerned, he was faultless. Paul felt himself to be a good person, in fact if we weren’t Christians and therefore rather biased against his persecution of us, we’d probably say he was a good person by the morality of the day. From a human perspective Paul was doing everything right, reading the Scriptures, living a good life, zealous for God. And yet he has missed who Jesus is, instead he was intent on trying to wipe out faith in Jesus.
What changes us isn’t any of the outward stuff, not that there’s anything wrong with the outward stuff, but it didn’t change Paul. What changes us, what sparks true faith within us is encounter with the risen Jesus. That’s what changed Paul, that’s what sparked newfound faith in him, that’s what led him to later, in that letter to the Philippians to regard everything else as rubbish compared to knowing Jesus.
And when I say that true faith is marked by encounter with the risen Jesus I’m not saying it has to be a dramatic moment like in our passage today on the road to Damascus. I’m not saying that if you’ve never experienced something like that you don’t really have faith, God doesn’t do things that way for all of us. But it’s Jesus who by the Holy Spirit transforms and changes us, it’s Jesus who heals and restores us, it’s Jesus who can take our lives and turn them around completely. Therefore a living faith is marked by encounter with Jesus, a drawing near to him as he draws near to you.
If you don’t know Jesus, none of that will happen, you can try to do it in your own strength but that will only get you so far, and may end up putting you in opposition to the very one you’re trying to serve. It’s why we often simplify coming to faith as praying a prayer asking Jesus into your life. It’s found nowhere in the Bible, but it’s getting at this reality, to be a Christian is to meet Jesus, and so we encourage people to open themselves up and pray that they would.
Paul has been utterly transformed, and yet the local believers, understandably, are sceptical. This might be a trick, a ploy to get access to the church, to the leaders and influential believers before carting them all off to prison. Even as Paul is utterly changed, the believers aren’t sure.
And I think we’d have some sympathy for their scepticism. In our own day over the last year or so we’ve seen a number of high profile conversions, people saying that they’ve become Christians, and some we might be sceptical of, some we might doubt, so how do we tell who has truly put their faith in Jesus and who is using faith to boost their platform? We’re to look at their lives afterwards.
Jesus says by their fruit you shall know them. So what happens to Paul? Well, after Ananias comes to heal him, he goes and starts preaching that Jesus is the Son of God. That’s fruit right there. In a matter of days he’s gone from trying to wipe out those who say Jesus is the Son of God, to proclaiming that they were right, and is rapidly becoming the foremost of the preachers of Jesus, to the point that some plot to kill him.
It’s not the preaching that Jesus is the Messiah that reveals faith, that’s not what’s going on here, people can preach Jesus from false motives, Paul himself tells us that. No, it’s the change from who he was before. Previously he was preaching against the Church, now he is preaching for her. And we can apply the same to any who claim the name of Jesus, and claim faith in him. Has their life changed as a result of that profession? Let’s not be unreasonable and expect whole life turnaround overnight, but is their claimed faith bearing fruit, are they changing from who they were into who God created them to be, or are they on the same track they were previously, just hoping to bring more along this time by playing the faith card?
So Paul has encountered the risen Jesus, newfound faith has sparked within him, and that faith is bearing fruit, his life has changed and he is being transformed day by day by God’s grace.
But I just want to circle back for a moment. Because Jesus says something rather amazing in that encounter on the road to Damascus which I breezed right past. He doesn’t say ‘Saul, why are you persecuting my people’, or ‘Saul, why are you persecuting my Church’ or even ‘Saul, why are you persecuting my servants’. No. Why are you persecuting me! Jesus is the one who identifies with us. In persecuting the believers in Jerusalem and beyond, Paul is persecuting Jesus. It is Jesus he is attacking and wounding.
We thought a few weeks ago about how in his Baptism Jesus is identifying himself with us. But here we see how utterly entwined we are with him. Even now seated in the heavenly places Jesus still identifies with us to such an extent that to persecute us to is to persecute him. We are utterly united with him, and he with us, what a joyous and comforting thought and reality that is.
And even with Paul he identifies. He has seen the darkness at work in Paul, in and through him. He sees the rage and the pain and the misplaced zeal. And Jesus doesn’t stand far off, he identifies even with Paul as he brings him into the fold.
Having caused so much suffering, we read that Paul is about to discover how much he must suffer for the sake of his faith in Jesus. And yet this isn’t a tit for tat, balancing the scales, karma type situation. No. Whilst Paul has caused much suffering, yet in his own sufferings for Christ, he will know the nearness of Christ, Jesus will still be with him in it all. He will know himself united to Jesus, even in his sufferings for him.
Who is the unlikeliest convert in our day? Who do you know who you expect least to come to faith? Whilst we may write them off as too far gone, too lost, too against God, God may be closer to them than we may first think. I don’t know if anyone in Paul’s day thought to pray for him to come to faith, but may we not make the same mistake, all it takes is meeting Jesus.
For true faith is marked by encounter with the risen Jesus, however undramatic that encounter may be, the risen Jesus who identifies with us and causes us to bear fruit. And so we see clearly that faith is not something we can manufacture within ourselves or bring about in others by our own strength. What is needed is Jesus, and yet he chooses to work his purposes out in and through us. So as we seek to reach out with his love and the hope of his Gospel, may we not do so in our own strength, but with prayer, with seeking after him and his will. May our prayer still be that of Advent; Come Lord Jesus; to our world, to this nation, to Hubberston & Hakin, to us, and to those we know, who do not yet know him.
Amen.