"By His Wounds" (Acts 9:1-19a)

The Season of Resurrection

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the children’s sermon in which the pastor patiently plays a guessing game with the circle of children gathered around him. “What’s small and covered with fur and has a big, bushy tail?” Silence. “It climbs in trees.” More silence. “It gathers nuts to prepare for the winter.” Finally a little girl timidly raises her hand. “It sure sounds like a squirrel,” she says, “but I know that the right answer must be Jesus.”

The Easter season is a bit like this little girl’s answer. Easter is the season of resurrection, and so we look for the risen Christ in everything that we see. It is common, of course, to read stories of the risen Jesus himself appearing to his disciples after his crucifixion. (We’ve read two such stories the last two Sundays.) But we don’t stop there. We also read other stories from the New Testament where it becomes clear that the risen Christ lives in his followers. Resurrection is not a reality that ends when Jesus departs. It is a reality that begins…and that grows in the faith of trusting hearts.

Saul the Persecutor

1   Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

When the book of Acts first introduces us to Saul, we find him presiding over the first documented execution of a Christ-follower, the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:1). According to the book of Acts, that execution initiates “a severe persecution…against the church” (Acts 8:1). And at the heart of that persecution is Saul, who according to Acts “ravag[es] the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3).

All this to say, Saul seems to be the principal persecutor of the first followers of Christ. He is their chief threat. Public enemy number one.

Christ the Persecuted

3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

In the most literal sense, these words are a contradiction. Paul is not persecuting Jesus; he is persecuting Jesus’ followers.

But that’s just the point for Jesus. He identifies so fully with the human family that when they suffer, he suffers. We heard this already in the gospel of Matthew when Jesus identifies with the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46)—the hungry, the homeless, the hurting, the imprisoned. Of course, in today’s story Jesus is referring more specifically to his followers, like Stephen who was recently stoned. Later, Saul-turned-Paul will tell the church that they are “the body of Christ.” It may well be this encounter with the risen Christ that inspires that profound metaphor. Jesus does not ask, “Why do you persecute my followers?” He asks, “Why do you persecute me?” Paul connects the dots to realize that Jesus’ persecuted followers are inextricably a part of Jesus—his “body” here on earth.

“No Body but Ours”?

6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

There’s a popular saying in the Christian tradition, often attributed to Teresa of Avila, that Christ has “no body but ours.” No hands but ours, no feet but ours, no eyes but ours, no voice but ours.

On the face of it, however, today’s story would seem to suggest otherwise. Because the risen Christ intervenes in Saul’s life in a miraculous, seemingly supernatural way, without the aid of our bodies—a blinding light, an unidentified voice. This is not a natural, everyday experience. (If it is, you should probably see a doctor!) It would appear in today’s story Christ can supernaturally do things on his own without our help, without our bodies.

This supernatural view of God, however, has the unfortunate tendency of evicting God from our “natural” world. It leads to the view that there are really two worlds: the “natural” world where we’re left to fend for ourselves and the “supernatural” world (or “heaven” if you’d like) from where God will occasionally stoop down to intervene in our world. At its extreme, this two-worlds view of things is a “pie-in-the-sky” theology. It’s a theology that has lost its nerve, maybe even lost its faith, as it’s unable to see God in this world, unable to trust in the way of God’s non-violent love in this very violent world.

I would like to suggest an alternative, namely a one-world view of things, in which there is no separation between God and the world. In a one-world view, God does not “intervene” in our world. Rather God is continually moving in it, continually “at work in [us]” (as Paul will say in Phil 2:13); God is the one “in [whom] we live and move and have our being” (as Paul says later in Acts 17:28), and God’s great purpose is not an evacuation from one world to another but, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, the reconciliation of all things in creation to Godself (Col 1:20). In a one-world view, Christ indeed has “no body but ours,” which is really intended to say not that Jesus is gone (although that is true in a bodily sense) but rather that our bodies—this one world—is the only place where Jesus really matters, where Jesus has any real effect.

If everything I’ve said in the last minute or two seems besides (or beyond) the point, then please leave it behind. Because what I really want to say is this: I strongly believe that Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ does not happen on the road to Damascus. It happens before then. It happens, paradoxically, at the execution of Stephen. In Stephen’s fallen body, Saul catches a glimpse of the risen Christ. For me, Stephen’s death is the real miracle, not what happens on the road to Damascus (which I think is just the fulfillment or completion of the real miracle). The real miracle is that when Stephen dies, he does not do so with cries of pain and vengeance but with faith and forgiveness. He is truly a disciple, or “learner,” of Jesus. He dies as Jesus died, entrusting his life to God (“receive my spirit” he prays) and forgiving his executioners (“Lord, do not hold this against them”). These are decidedly not natural words to utter as one dies a violent death. If we insist on talking about the “supernatural” in this story, I would point to Stephen’s death. Only a person who has been thoroughly changed, inside-out, by Jesus, could utter such words.

All this to say, I think Stephen’s radical witness at his death plants a seed in Saul’s heart. Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus does not come out of nowhere, out of the blue, out of a miraculous divine intervention from on high. No, I think God has already been “at work in” his heart since the moment he caught a glimpse of the risen Christ in Stephen’s extraordinary faith and forgiveness.

Last week, we saw the risen Christ present his wounds to his followers at the same time that he declared “Peace” to them. Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that today Saul first encounters the risen Christ by his wounds. When on the road to Damascus he hears the voice ask, “Why do you persecute me?”, he is confronted with the wounds of  Christ that he first saw in the wounds of Stephen, wounds that he himself administered. And those wounds become an invitation, an open door, into a radically different way of life. For in those wounds he caught a glimpse of God’s way—not force, but forgiveness; not retribution, but peace.

Christ Risen in Another Disciple

10   Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, 

“Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

If Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ begins with Stephen, then his next encounter with the risen Christ happens with Ananias. The book of Acts privileges us with a glimpse inside Ananias’ heart prior to his visit with Saul. In a vision, Ananias feels compelled by Christ to go lay hands on Saul to heal his loss of sight. From where does this vision, this calling come? Again, I don’t think it comes out of nowhere. I don’t think it’s a supernatural intervention from another world. What’s “supernatural” in this event is not the vision but the very notion of approaching public enemy number one to touch him tenderly so that he might be healed. By our world’s logic, Ananias would have had every right to think that Saul’s blindness was an act of God’s justice, a bit of karma, his evil deeds finally catching up with him. “Serves him right,” the world would say.

But like Stephen, Ananias is a disciple or “learner” of Jesus, who has been so thoroughly transformed by the Jesus way that he has left behind the worldly notions of retributive justice, of God as punishing judge. In Paul’s later language, we might say Ananias had “died” to the world—to its way of seeing “us versus them,” its way of judging and condemning. What we see in Ananias is not the world but the risen Christ. His vision is no out-of-the-blue-divine intervention; it is simply the blossoming of what was already in his heart, namely that as a follower of Christ he would pray for his persecutors and love his enemies.

How the Church “Fights” Its Enemies

17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Just to make the contrast as stark as possible: Saul pursued his enemies with threats and violence. He approved of their execution.

Ananias approaches his enemy—public enemy number one—and addresses him, “Brother.”

One commentator muses that today’s scripture shows us how the church “fights” its enemies. The world fights with fists, with swords, with guns. The body of Christ “fights” with tender touch, with trust, with care.

Paul’s “Conversion”: Persecutor to Peacemaker

Readers have traditionally labeled today’s story “the conversion of Saul.” In one sense, this label is misleading. It suggests that Saul (who becomes Paul) went from being a Jew to a Christian. But Saul does not abandon his Jewish faith. Rather he comes to reinterpret his Jewish faith in light of Jesus, who was himself a Jew. At this stage in history, there is no such thing as Christianity. There is simply a movement of Jesus-followers, most of whom are Jewish. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to see this movement as a sect within Judaism, just like the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the zealots.

So, no, Paul’s conversion is not a case of switching sides, of swapping jerseys, of moving from “Team Jewish” to “Team Jesus.” His conversion demands much more of him than simply ticking a different box for religion on the census form. Think about it for a moment. Simply switching sides would not have necessarily entailed a different way of life. Paul could have switched sides but continued playing the same game. He could have decided this Jesus fellow was right, and everyone else needed to be forced—by hook or crook—into the same camp. He could have continued breathing threats and violence, just against a new enemy.

But he doesn’t. His conversion is deeper. More profound. This is not the tale of how Saul the Jew became Paul the Christian. It’s the story of how Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the peacemaker. Because if you think about it, that’s what Paul becomes in the early church. Not only does let go of his violent ways, but he also proclaims the reconciliation of all creation into the family of God: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Of Christ, he proclaims: “He is our peace; … he … has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Eph 2:14).

And Paul’s “conversion” begins in the weirdest, seemingly weakest of ways. It begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in the executed Stephen who nevertheless proclaims forgiveness upon his executors; it begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in Ananias, who as part of the wounded body of Christ receives him in a tender embrace and calls him “brother.”

There is a prophecy from Isaiah that the early church cited time and again about a mysterious figure known as the “suffering servant.” One such citation actually appears in the story that immediately precedes today’s (Acts 8:32-33). Isaiah insists that somehow this suffering servant’s wounds will heal us all: “By his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). In today’s scripture, I see just such a healing. The wounds of Christ transform Saul, snapping him out of his distorted, worldly thinking, and showing him a different way, God’s patient way of mercy and forgiveness.

Saul’s real conversion—not from Jew to Christian, but from persecutor to peacemaker—suggests just how radical the Jesus way is. Think about the worldly logic that prevails today, from the schoolyard to the world stage. It’s stuff like “survival of the fittest,” and “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and “the one with the most toys at the end wins,” and “better to be feared than loved.” It’s the worship of power. That’s the logic the young Saul followed. (You could be a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian and underneath your religion this is what you really believe. There are plenty of religious people who really believe in this worldly logic of power.) But the logic of the wounded yet risen Christ is antithetical to this worldly logic. It’s stuff like “blessed are the poor and the meek,” stuff like “God will provide,” stuff like “love is better than life” (to quote a psalm), stuff like “all of life is a gift.” In a word, it’s the worship of Love, which is another name for God. (“God is Love” as John says).

The wounds of Christ show us—as they showed Paul—not only the hurtful consequences of our worldly logic. They also show us the way of God…and the way we are healed, if we would believe it.

Prayer

Crucified and risen Christ,
Whose woundedness offers us
An invitation into your healing love
…
Work in our hearts
As you worked in Paul’s,
That we might be
Not conformed to this world
But transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Lead us in the way of your mercy. Amen.