May 1, 2022                                    Text:  Acts 9:1-22

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Question for you.  If you wanted to select someone to be a character witness for you, would you choose someone who didn’t like you?  If you had the opportunity to make someone your strongest advocate, would you go with a person who goes out of their way to make sure the world knows you are no good?

    Those choices defy human reason.  In our text this morning from Acts this is what our Lord Jesus does.  He chooses a persecutor of His name to carry the message of the Gospel to all the nations.  

    Saul of Tarsus, was an opponent of Christ.  He imprisoned Christians in Jerusalem.  His energy was used to try to destroy the Christian Church.  If at that time he was allowed to twitter his thoughts, facebook his musings, or youtube his rantings you all would have had utter contempt for this man.  Now he is on the way to Damascus to arrest the Christians there and bring them back to Jerusalem.  Man, how we despise this guy. 

    Jesus has another perspective.  Christ is going to meet him on the road to set him free.  

“SAUL SET OUT IN MALICE, BUT JESUS MET HIM IN MERCY”

    Jesus begins by confronting Saul with his sin.  “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (v. 4)  Jesus is no longer a faceless name.  In his blindness he calls out, “who are you, Lord?”  The answer.  “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (v. 5)

    Things start to come into focus for Saul.  In persecuting the Church he was persecuting Christ Himself.  The story is getting more interesting.  It is time to send Saul to Damascus.

    With three days of prayer and fasting he is sent to Ananias.  Ananias was a disciple of Christ who Saul would have brought “bound to Jerusalem.”  The Lord brings together these two separate men, these two guys who think differently, into fellowship together through the Gospel.  It all happens on Straight Street!  “Straighten up.”  “Walk straight.”  “Get on the straight and narrow.”  This is all going to happen for Saul.  

    Ananias is reluctant.  Wouldn’t you be?  Do you get up each day and think, “I believe I will go down to Main Street and meet with those who hate Christ and His Church?”  The beauty of this man’s faith is evident.  The Lord explains Saul’s mission and Ananias lays hands on him and baptizes him in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The names that Saul hated with a passion.

    By God’s grace in Christ, Saul had been reconciled to God.  He had been the enemy of Christ, but through His gracious work he was now a friend of Jesus.  Saul would be the ambassador of this same gift of reconciliation to the world.  Jesus met Him in mercy.

    Some treat Saul’s conversion as a model for all Christian conversion.  They think a crisis must occur for a conversion to take place.  This is misleading.  The Lord may work through heartaches and valleys, but conversion is always the work of the Holy Spirit through the mans of grace.  Saul’s conversion takes place as he receives Word and Sacrament.  It doesn’t take a dramatic experience.  You may have come to faith quietly.  What matters is trust in Christ as Savior and Lord.

    How many Saul’s do you see in our world today?  Spouting their theories about Christianity.  Defending evolution.  Desecrating marriage.  Blasting parents.  Killing the baby.  Saying the church is not “vital or essential.”  When you let your mind become clouded with these thoughts what starts to happen?  You stand on the verge of hating the person and not the message.  For many of us we would have done the same with Saul.  His malice would have gotten in the way of our Christian love.

    Isn’t it wonderful our Lord is different?  He sees the soul in front of Him.  He sees the misguided rhetoric that is spouted.  Saul is the perfect choice to spread the message because he has been on the side that needs to be converted.  What a beautiful, beautiful plan.  The best elder in a church can be the man who was once on the outside looking in.  The best LCMS Pastor can be the one who once pranced and danced in the pews of a non-liturgical confessional Church.  They’ve seen the other side and the view is not great.

    We are dependent on God’s saving grace.  When we want to step out on the ledge because the voices of the day have gotten us so upset, the Lord pulls back in.  “My child,” He says.  “I love you.  I forgive you for your thoughts toward others.  Let it go.  I am in control.  Look at what I did for Saul.  No one is beyond hope.”  

    Christ transforms.  He does it in His time and in His way.  We are blessed to receive that mercy again today.  It is showered on us in this Word we hear and in the Sacrament we will enjoy in fellowship together.  What Saul do you need to be praying for?  Whose heart needs a transplant?  You too are a “chosen instrument” of the Lord.  God reached out to Saul.  You’ve witnessed it firsthand.  Saul set out in malice, but Jesus met him in mercy.  

                                            Amen.