“The Fall of Saul”: a sermon for the SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (22 JUNE 2025)

 

     A “ruined” life.  A “kindred spirit” for me in my struggle to better understand and articulate “the gospel” is Rich Mullins (1955-97), who was not a theologian, but rather a singer/songwriter who wrote, among dozens of others, the song “Awesome God”.  Rich suffered a tremendous amount of spiritual and emotional anguish during his not quite 42-years-long life.  And yet, +20 years after his death, Rich is still having a tremendous impact on people though his writings and especially through his music.  The purposes of God continue to go forward in spite of – no, scratch that – because of all of Rich’s pain.  Brennan Manning (1934-2013), an evangelist and a close friend of Rich’s, said this about him: “Jesus of Nazareth ruined Rich Mullins’s life.  And out of the ruins he recreated a ragamuffin of startling originality; no human being who has crossed my path even remotely resembles him”.^[1]

     The same thing could be said of the apostle Paul.  The most famous letter in the New Testament – Paul’s epistle to the Romans – was written by a man whose world had been turned upside down by Jesus (more than once!).  After attempting to destroy the church, Saul of Tarsus had an experience that set him on the path which would eventually lead him to write a letter to the Christians of the imperial capital.  Here’s what happened.

     Not satisfied with his attempts to root out the Nazarene heresy in Jerusalem, Saul approached the High Priest and requested letters of introduction so that he could expand his “inquisition” to Damascus.  His request was granted and Saul set out towards Syria with the intent of ferreting out “any who belonged to the Way” and extraditing them to Jerusalem to, presumably, stand trial.  The story is well known – a light “from heaven” flashed around him and Saul fell to the ground and heard a voice calling him by name and asking “Why do you persecute me?”  Saul asks a question of his own, to which the reply comes “I am Jesus” (Ac. 9.5).  Once Saul gets back to his feet, he realizes that he has been struck blind.  His companions lead him by the hand into the city and he remains in the dark, without eating, for three days (9.8-9).  Jesus appears to a disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias, and tells him that the man they fear the most, Saul of Tarsus, is in town and is in need of prayer (9.10-16)!  Though understandably reluctant to accept this mission, Ananias obeys and goes to the address given him by Jesus and finds Saul and lays his hands on him, upon which Saul recovers his sight and is immediately baptized, thus becoming a disciple of Jesus (9.17-19).  Right away, Saul – who had come to arrest those followers of Jesus who frequented the synagogues of Damascus – begins to preach in those very synagogues that Jesus is indeed the Messiah of Israel (9.20-22)!

     This is a key point.  Notice that Saul does not share a “testimony” of having become a believer in God – of course not!  Saul had been raised as an observant Jew; that is to say, he had always believed in Yahweh, the God of Israel.  Indeed, it was his (ill-informed) loyalty to God which had motivated his persecution of the disciples in Jerusalem.  So, what happened on the road to Damascus?  Well, as we saw, the risen Jesus appeared to Saul and this encounter convinced him that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah of Israel, the Christ, the Son of God.  Saul had become convinced that Yahweh’s plan of salvation for Israel and the world had been fulfilled, and that the Messiah, shockingly enough, had been crucified but was now alive again.  Ever the man of action, Saul wastes no time but begins to preach Jesus in the synagogues of Damascus.

     Call.  What is commonly referred to as Saul’s “conversion” is actually more of a “call narrative”.  Jesus tells Ananias that Saul is a “chosen instrument” to proclaim the name of Jesus “before the nations, before kings and the people of Israel” (Ac. 9.15; cf. Gal. 1.16, where Paul shares his understanding that he had actually been chosen to be an apostle before he was born!).  Seen in this light, what happened on the road to Damascus was more akin to Moses’ experience at the burning bush (cf. Ex. 3) or Isaiah’s experience in the Temple (cf. Is. 6) than that of the Philippian jailer, for example (cf. Ac. 16.27-34).  So, on the road, Saul both realized that Jesus was the Messiah and was called to become a servant of Israel’s king, charged with the task of announcing his kingdom to all nations.  As Jesus had told Ananias, “I will show Saul how much he will suffer for my name” (Ac. 9.16).  Indeed, Saul’s life of privilege and prestige was now over; the adventure of a lifetime would now begin, and would often prove to be (almost) unbearably difficult (cf. e.g. 2 Corinthians 11-12).  Despite the inevitable challenges that awaited him, Saul is already displaying that “zeal” and drive that he will evidence once again when he writes to the Romans about his plans to travel to Spain (cf. Rom. 15.22-29).

Character.  What kind of message was Paul’s “gospel”?  What was its peculiar character?  Paul’s gospel was NOT an explanation about “how you can get saved, born again, justified, etc.”  All of that is a result of having believed the gospel.  But Paul’s gospel itself is an announcement about events that have happened in the world, about what God has done in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The gospel is good news.  Paul’s gospel was news about what God had done in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s King and the world’s Lord.  So what was the right response to such news?

Challenge.  What was the challenge of Paul’s gospel?  “We have received… apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations”, says Paul (Rm. 1.5).  This is the appropriate response to the proclamation of the gospel (of Jesus) – “the obedience of faith”.

Nothing can change the fact that Jesus is Lord.  He is the “supreme ruler” of God’s world and he is the one to whom “every knee will (ultimately) bow” (cf. Phil. 2.9-11).  Paul was travelling around the empire where everyone was aware of Caesar’s “gospel”; Paul proclaimed his own “gospel”, according to which Jesus of Nazareth – not Nero – was Lord, was the true “emperor”.  Paul was claiming that the (known) world no longer belonged to Caesar – it now belonged to Jesus.  Yes, Nero was sitting on the throne of Rome, but from the perspective of Christian faith, he was merely a “servant of God” and his purposes (cf. Rm. 13.3-4; cf. also e.g. Is. 44.28), someone to be respected, but acknowledged as being someone who served the will of the true Lord.  So, the challenge of Paul’s gospel is to be constantly aware of the fact that Jesus – not any government, any economic or political world-body, the G7, the UN, NATO, not Vladimir Putin, not even Donald Trump – Jesus is Lord, he is the one who claims our ultimate allegiance; Jesus is Lord now, he was enthroned at the right hand of God following his ascension 2,000 years ago (cf. Ac. 2.33-35), and he has been Lord ever since.  We live in God’s world, the world in which he has launched his kingdom (through the resurrection of Jesus), the throne of which was given to Jesus and over which he will rule “until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (cf. 1 Cor. 15.25-26, 28; cf. also Ps. 110.1).  As Christians, we are even called to share in the reign of Jesus over the world – not by “conquering” the world, not by dropping bombs on the “axis of evil” (in September 2001, American President Bush spoke of launching a “crusade” to “rid the world of evil”) – but rather by bringing the “cruciform” love of God to every corner of the world, starting in our own backyard.  Yes, it will mean suffering, but Jesus said that that’s the only way (cf. e.g. Lk. 24.26).

So, this is Paul’s gospel.  This is the place, the solid rock on which we take our stand in the midst of the (sometimes hostile, often indifferent) world.  So, we have a place to stand.  We also have “a place to run to”.  Our place to run to is the (local) Church.  John Calvin said: “God is our Father and the Church is our Mother”.  Our church community is the place where we are nurtured, where we discover our (spiritual) giftings, where we are healed and ministered to, where we learn how to minister to others – our church is where we learn (to be loved and) to love.  It’s not for nothing that Paul’s favourite way of referring to the members of his churches is as his “family” (i.e. “brothers [and sisters]”).  Life in Christian community is not to be characterized by individualistic ambition, achievement and “success”, but rather mutual solidarity and humble service.  Paul tells the Philippians: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil. 2.3-4).

 

From riches to rags to resurrection.  Once we’ve grasped – or rather, been grasped by (cf. Gal. 4.9) – the gospel (according to Paul), we are called to become “gospel-people”.  This means that we will say, along with Paul: “I decided to know nothing (among you) except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2.2).  As we’ve seen, embracing the gospel that Paul preached can NEVER be a question of simply “getting saved” and then sitting around waiting, either to go to heaven or for Jesus to come back.  Yes, Christians who die before the return of Christ are “with him”, as Paul tells the Philippians (1.21-24).  Yes, Jesus will return; Paul says this over and over …and over again.  However, Paul has a very “active” (to put it mildly) understanding of the Christian life.  Writing to the Philippians, Paul uses the image of Jesus “grabbing hold of him” as he tries to “catch up to Jesus” as Paul “runs the race” of a disciple.

 

Listen to Paul:

“I’m not implying that I’ve already received ‘resurrection’, or that I’ve already become complete and mature!  No: I’m hurrying on, eager to overtake it, because King Jesus has overtaken me.  My dear family, I don’t reckon that I have yet overtaken it.  But this is my one aim: to forget everything that’s behind, and to strain every nerve to go after what’s ahead.  I mean to chase on toward the finish line, where the prize waiting for me is the upward call of God in King Jesus.” (Phil. 3.12-14: Kingdom NT)

Once we are “overtaken”, “overwhelmed” by Jesus, by the gospel of his death and resurrection, it is unthinkable that we interpret that as simply meaning: “Great, I believe that Jesus died for my sins; I accept him (into my heart).  I can’t wait to get to heaven.”  What’s wrong with this picture?  I, my – it’s all about me.  That is the OPPOSITE conclusion from the one Paul drew after he found himself “caught” by Jesus:

“For the love of Christ urges us on…he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2 Cor. 5.14-15; cf. Gal. 2.19-20).

This is incredible!  Paul says that the reason Jesus died was so that we would now live for him.  Jesus has things for us to do, and this flows straight from the gospel itself (cf. Eph. 2.8-10).

Right before the previous passage I quoted, Paul had said the words that we read this morning from his letter to the Philippians (3.4-14).  These are the words of a man who had it all …and then lost it all “for the sake of Jesus”, “to gain Christ”.  “I want to know Christ”, says Paul, “and share his sufferings by becoming like him in his death”.  Paul had been “branded” (cf. Gal. 6.17), “scarred” with the “crucified-and-risen” nature of Jesus.  The cross and resurrection have left an “indelible mark” on Paul’s soul.  Paul wants to so deeply identify with Jesus that he can “re-live” Jesus’ (cross-)experience in his own life – as I put it – “from riches to rags to resurrection”.

Success story?  We often understand someone having a “calling” to the ministry in the same way that one can have a “professional vocation”.  Some people study welding to become welders; others study theology for the purpose (of realizing that most of what they are being taught is irrelevant and then getting back to the real task) of becoming preachers.  Sometimes it works out that way; that’s the convenient and respectable vocational journey.  Or, within our Christian sub-culture, we praise and (almost) “idolize” those who are called to exercise an “official function” in the church.  People get ordained to the ministry and everyone says, “Congratulations, we’re so happy for you!”  I think that if Paul could attend a modern-day ordination service, he would find it bitterly comical.  Just imagine the Bishop (or whoever) inviting Paul, the brilliantly successful missionary theologian, to come to the pulpit to grace all the young and eager seminary graduates with a motivational speech.

 

“Greetings graduates,” Paul might intone, “Let me tell you about my journey to the apostolic ministry and becoming a world-renowned Christian thinker.  Well, as you know, I was a Christian-killer for a few years (this was my period of trying to “find myself”), then the risen Jesus appeared to me on the road to Damascus and I decided to make a …life-change and stop killing Christians, and become one myself.  I became an over-night …fugitive, having to repel down the wall of Damascus in a bucket because the Damascene king wanted to kill me.  Then I tried to join the hippest, coolest megachurch of the first century – the Jerusalem Church, you know, the one that Jesus’ brother James was pastoring.  But my application for membership was denied because – can you believe it? – they held my past life against me. Then I spent a decade in obscurity back in my home town of Tarsus, getting publicly beaten every time I tried to preach in the synagogue, bringing tremendous shame on my family and losing all my friends in the process.  Then, I had my big break, I was …discovered by Barnabas, who brought me to the successful Antioch Church, which served as a base of operations for my numerous travels around the Eastern Mediterranean as a church-planter.  Life on the road as an evangelical superstar isn’t easy; it’s basically just an endless series of …prison cells, and mobs of people chasing you from town to town, in the hopes of having a chance …to stone you to death …um, where was this story going?...”

 

As far as Paul was concerned, “being set apart for the gospel of God” (Rm. 1.1) was not something to call home about!  From the perspective of normal, respectable, middle-class folks, being “called to be an apostle” of Jesus was the worst possible thing that could happen to you!  Paul’s “calling” was far from being an occasion of joy and community pride; au contraire, the moment Paul was “called” by Jesus was the moment that his life as he had always known it was utterly and irreversibly ruined.  And yet, in that same letter to the Philippians, the noun “joy” appears 5 times, and the verb “to rejoice” appears 9 times (in only 4 chapters)!!!

Life “in Christ”.  This is the pattern of the life of those who are called to Christ’s service – and we’re all called to serve our Lord – our life has to be “ruined”, i.e. our vision for our lives has to be dashed to pieces (i.e. “crucified”) so that we can be captured by Jesus’ vision of how he will bring healing (i.e. “resurrection”-life) to the world, through us, and indeed, through our wounds.  Sound familiar?  It should.  After all, in the Gospels, Jesus is always saying “Pick up your cross and follow me” (cf. Mk. 10.21; Lk. 9.23; Jn. 21.19, 22).  This is – in the words of Watchman Nee – the “normal Christian life”.  As Christians, we are – as Paul is constantly saying – “in Christ”, i.e. what is true of Jesus is true of us (cf. 1 Peter 2.21, 24).  We are the “cross-and-resurrection” people, sent out from the cross into the world to be sources of healing and hope.  Paul says this in a dozen different ways:

 

“I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col. 1.24) (Stop the presses!)

 

Our mission as a local church is nothing less than to model genuine humanness to the world, i.e. our neighbourhood.  We are the people of God, we are the true humanity – we are the women and men who are “being transformed into the…image [of Jesus, who is himself the image of God – the true human (cf. Col. 1.15; Gn. 1.26)] …from one degree of glory to another”, as Paul puts it (2 Cor. 3.18).  May our crucified and risen Lord fill us again with his Spirit so that we may be empowered to, as Jesus put it, “let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven” (Mt. 5.16).  Amen.

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[1] Brennan Manning, “Foreword” in Smith, James Bryan, An Arrow pointing to Heaven, Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2000, p. x.