Acts 9:1-31
By now, you might have noticed a pattern in the encounters with Christ for the week. In every case but one, the result was a new name: Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, the nation of Israel has a new name," married" and "blessed" instead of "desolate", Simon becomes Peter, and now Saul becomes Paul. Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ he/she is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new is come." The new names these biblical folk received was a way of communicating their new relationship with God and their new reality in life. In the case of Paul, he was always known as Saul among the Jews, but Paul was a Greco-Roman name. His name change was a symbol of his ministry and a whole new direction of the Christian movement - to the Gentiles.
One of the things we do in baptism is declare the name of the child before the congregation. Why do we do that? The name is the same as the one on his/her birth certificate and everyone already knows the child's name. In some cultures, the baptized are actually given a new and different name. But in our culture we name them before the congregation as a statement of their identity not just as a child of her/his parents, but as a child of God.
Saul,in the book of Acts, is known as a young and radical Pharisee. He is brilliant (having been trained by Gamaliel - one of the leading Jewish scholars of the day) and bold, a major persecutor of those who followed "the Way," what was seen by the Pharisees as a Jewish cult. When Stephen is martyred in Acts 7, those who stoned him laid their coats at the feet of Saul. On the way to Damascus to persecute others of "the way", the Savior of "the way" met him.
Sometimes I am jealous of Saul and the drama of his conversion - a blinding light, Jesus audibly speaking to him. It is one of the great stories of how a person met Jesus, but it should not be used as a paradigm for how people meet him, for the ways people meet Jesus are as varied as the people who experience Him.
Sunday's sermon will take on the experience of Ananias in this passage. What a risk he took and what a benefit for the gospel.
Of course, not everybody was excited by Saul's conversion. The Jews wanted to kill him and set out to do so and the Christians in Jerusalem did not trust that his conversion was genuine. So he ends up going back to his home town of Tarsus and waits for seven years.
Consider a moment the dimensions of Saul's conversion: from head knowledge of God to heart knowledge, from legalistic religion to dynamic Christ-centered faith, from radical allegiance to a tradition to a living experience of Christ. His primarily goal in life changed from being the most feared Pharisee in Palestine to being the bondslave of the Christ he persecuted. Where might your story have common ground with Saul who became Paul?
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I grew up in the church living and doing the traditions to be seen by men. Saul was wrapped up in religious traditions too; mine were just not as radical as Saul. I and Saul were both the missing point until we both truly met and accepted Jesus as Lord; again mine was not as dramatic as Saul. I too needed an Ananias (more mature Christian/Pastor) to help guide me to develop and mature my walk in Christ; of course mine did not have to overcome fear of arrest and death to help guide me like Ananias.
Similarities I think in most Christian stories, wallowing in existence and human experience followed by an encounter (dramatic or gradual) with Christ followed by your walk, dedication, commitment and those people God puts in your path to help guide you on the journey toward perfection. The results are the final victory when we see Him face to face and live eternity with him. All this happens not because we earned it because of the grace of God given through the sacrifice of his Son.
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