May 4, 2025
Third Sunday of Easter
A New Voice
It’s the most famous conversion story in the Bible. Anyone who’s ever thought about becoming a Christian has heard about Paul’s revelation on the Road to Damascus, and how he was transformed from an enemy to the faith into one of our greatest leaders. That flash of light which blinded him for three days changed his heart and his life, and Christianity itself has never been the same.
The drama, the suddenness, the utter change of heart, make for fabulous story-telling. Our more evangelical-minded colleagues in the faith often hold this up as an example of the sort of “come to Jesus moment” that every authentic Christian should expect.
I think that goes a bit too far. Most Christians never have that kind of life-transforming moment, and still lead faithful and significant lives. You don’t need a “Damascus Road visitation” to have an authentic experience of God – the reason this story is so striking is because God is seldom so blunt!
What really grabs me about this story, though, is not what happened to Paul himself, but how all the other Christians around him didn’t write him off as a danger or a quack. It must have been terrifying that one of their greatest persecutors – the guy who’d been acting as a bounty hunter for the authorities and rounding up all their friends – was now claiming to have had a such a breathtaking change of heart. Can you trust a convert? Is this conversion for real? Is he just trying to weasel his way into their movement to get more intel on who ought to be arrested next?
How could they trust someone who’d been “breathing threats and murder against the disciples” just a few days before?
The response of the Christian community that adopts him, trains him, ministers to him, and raises him up as a leader, in spite of all he’d done to destroy them is a remarkable example of practical forgiveness. Martin Luther King famously said “love is the only thing powerful enough to turn an enemy into a friend.” What kind of loving did they offer, to do that for Paul? What kind of loving had they themselves experienced, to make them put aside their natural human inclination towards fear, or vengeance, and welcome the one who had imprisoned their friends?
It wasn’t just God’s forgiveness that Paul needed to atone for all the evil he had done – though he certainly needed that! It was theirs too. Without their forgiveness, this whole blinding revelation on the Damascus Road would have been long forgotten!
History turns not just on the decisions of key leaders, but on how the community responds. We are Christians not just because of Paul’s wisdom, but because those courageous and mostly unnamed Christians were willing to give him a chance.
Can we live with courage like that? Can we offer forgiveness like that? Are we willing to embrace even those who’ve done terrible things, in the belief that God can use even the worst among us? Is that wise, or crazy? Dangerous, or liberating? And how do you know?
Join us on Sunday as we explore how God brought a New Voice into a community struggling to live out Kingdom values in complicated times!