Resurrection faith makes us new
Acts 9:1-20
BY PHIL WOGAMAN
The story of Paul on the Damascus Road is one of the most dramatic in Acts. It contains an extraordinary witness to resurrection faith. It is not about physical events so much as a miraculous change of heart.
Here we have Saul of Tarsus “breathing threats and murder” and setting forth to Damascus to persecute Christians. He has already been an accessory to the murder of Stephen. He has become like
Inspector Javert in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” consumed by hate and vindictiveness.
But on his way to Damascus Saul sees the light. No longer a deadly enemy to Christ, he becomes the apostle Paul, the first great Christian missionary and the preeminent theologian of the first century Christian church.
Such miracles of resurrection are not all that unusual in Christian history. Even Peter, the “rock,” denied Jesus three times during the crisis of Good Friday, later weeping bitterly over his failure. And then, still later, truly becoming the rock of the church.
One of our favorite hymns, “Amazing Grace,” was written by a man who had been a slave trader, engaged in sin on a monumental scale that often included murder. Later, after his own conversion, he could write “how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found…”
We can be pretty slow to accept such conversions in people we have written off. It certainly took those Christians, huddled together in
Damascus, quite a while to accept that this Paul had changed so radically. No wonder! And yet, as a church of the Resurrection, might they not have welcomed, even
anticipated, such a miracle?
In our own time, we can be so consumed by our stereotypes of people that we are oblivious to the power of God at work in their lives.
Our media-driven society
perpetuates this, particularly in our
attitudes toward politicians and other leaders. Once a public figure has exhibited flaws, we will have nothing more to do with them or their ideas. Television bytes freeze an image of such figures in time, and we assume that they will not, indeed cannot, change.
But there is hope for us in
resurrection. Who of us wants to be identified forever by our worst sins of thought, word and deed?
I won’t recite my own sins here, but I will witness to the power of grace as expressed in the tradition we share and in the faith of friends and loved ones who have helped me to grow through the years. In that sense, perhaps, we are all works in progress and God isn’t through with any of us yet.
I think the deepest message we need to hear is that stereotypes about other people really do
damage. We can, even in the church, so stigmatize others that they are frozen in our minds. Paul’s view of Christians changed dramatically. The church has had to learn hard lessons about the evils of racism and other stereotypes.
Can you think of people you have been too inclined to reject?
The Rev. Phil Wogaman is a retired Elder in the Baltimore-
Washington Conference.
BY PHIL WOGAMAN
The story of Paul on the Damascus Road is one of the most dramatic in Acts. It contains an extraordinary witness to resurrection faith. It is not about physical events so much as a miraculous change of heart. Here we have Saul of Tarsus “breathing threats and murder” and setting forth to Damascus to persecute Christians. He has already been an accessory to the murder of Stephen. He has become like
Inspector Javert in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” consumed by hate and vindictiveness.
But on his way to Damascus Saul sees the light. No longer a deadly enemy to Christ, he becomes the apostle Paul, the first great Christian missionary and the preeminent theologian of the first century Christian church.
Such miracles of resurrection are not all that unusual in Christian history. Even Peter, the “rock,” denied Jesus three times during the crisis of Good Friday, later weeping bitterly over his failure. And then, still later, truly becoming the rock of the church.
One of our favorite hymns, “Amazing Grace,” was written by a man who had been a slave trader, engaged in sin on a monumental scale that often included murder. Later, after his own conversion, he could write “how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found…”
We can be pretty slow to accept such conversions in people we have written off. It certainly took those Christians, huddled together in
Damascus, quite a while to accept that this Paul had changed so radically. No wonder! And yet, as a church of the Resurrection, might they not have welcomed, even
anticipated, such a miracle?
In our own time, we can be so consumed by our stereotypes of people that we are oblivious to the power of God at work in their lives.
Our media-driven society
perpetuates this, particularly in our
attitudes toward politicians and other leaders. Once a public figure has exhibited flaws, we will have nothing more to do with them or their ideas. Television bytes freeze an image of such figures in time, and we assume that they will not, indeed cannot, change.
But there is hope for us in
resurrection. Who of us wants to be identified forever by our worst sins of thought, word and deed?
I won’t recite my own sins here, but I will witness to the power of grace as expressed in the tradition we share and in the faith of friends and loved ones who have helped me to grow through the years. In that sense, perhaps, we are all works in progress and God isn’t through with any of us yet.
I think the deepest message we need to hear is that stereotypes about other people really do
damage. We can, even in the church, so stigmatize others that they are frozen in our minds. Paul’s view of Christians changed dramatically. The church has had to learn hard lessons about the evils of racism and other stereotypes.
Can you think of people you have been too inclined to reject?
The Rev. Phil Wogaman is a retired Elder in the Baltimore-
Washington Conference.
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