The Day My Life Changed Forever

3rd Sunday of Easter, 4/10/16
Acts 9:1-19a


The Day My Life Changed Forever


Have you ever been convinced you were absolutely correct about something, but in reality you were dead wrong? It happens more often than we like to admit. You did your homework. You have the facts right in front of you. You even share what you know to be true with others and they believe you to be correct. And then it happens. You find out you were wrong. Dead wrong. What you had thought and said was not true.

And the result? First, a lot of shame. How could you have been duped? You take pride in making sure you don’t get led down the wrong path. You’ve seen it happen to others so you took great pains to make sure it doesn’t happen to you, but it did! Worse yet, you were the source of duping others. You want to be known as being trustworthy. But what you said was not true. Who will ever trust what you say again? You’re ashamed.

But you also hurt deep inside. You’ve deceived yourself and others and the cost has been significant. Opportunities were lost. Time was wasted. Energy and attention was foolishly misdirected. You brought hardship into your life, but even worse, into the lives of others. Has that ever happened to you?

For decades I thought I was right. I was the son of a Jewish Pharisee. From little on, as far back as I can remember, I was taught that surely the only true God—the God of the Jews—was pleased with me and the members of my family because we zealously followed every tenet of God’s covenant with us. Gentiles lived all around us in the city of Tarsus, but we were careful to avoid any contact with them. All day long we were focused on what God required of us and we gladly obeyed. Other Jews looked up to us for our religious fervor. They wished they had the same dedication to the Lord. And my family was proud of that. We gladly told any Jewish person who would listen what we did for the Lord.

Throughout my youth I looked forward to the day when I would be old enough to become recognized as a Pharisee. I had studied the Torah diligently and was schooled under the famous rabbi Gamaliel, who was the grandson of one of the most famous Jewish rabbis ever, a man named Hillel. I was thoroughly versed in all the interpretations of the rabbis down through the centuries. My fellow Pharisees quickly recognized that I was a rising star among them.

So I was delighted when our Jewish leaders finally succeeded in getting rid of Jesus of Nazareth. What a blasphemer he was! Claiming to be the Son of God! We all knew he was nothing more than the son of a poor carpenter from Nazareth. Some of our people claimed they witnessed him perform miracles, but I refused to believe it.

And what a pathetic claim to be the promised Messiah! We knew that the Messiah wouldn’t be meek and humble like some common servant. The Messiah we were looking for was not going to spend time with social outcasts, public sinners, or little children. He was going to come and free the Jewish people of our hated bondage under the heathen Romans. So our leaders got rid of him. He couldn’t even save himself from an execution designed for the worst of criminals. Some Messiah!

So, when his followers claimed he had risen from the dead and now this sect of Jews was gaining momentum and increasing in numbers, I was convinced that something had to be done. That’s why I was delighted when my fellow-Pharisees put Stephen to death by stoning. We made an example out of him! We won’t tolerate any more of this blasphemy! Jesus of Nazareth is dead. We all know that. So, if it took persecution to put an end to this sect, then so be it. I would help crushing this movement in Jerusalem.

But that wasn’t enough for me. I had heard that there were members of this sect in Damascus, the capital of Syria, about 150 miles north of Jerusalem. I was absolutely certain that I was correct about this blasphemer named Jesus of Nazareth and, the more I thought about it, the more fervent I became about ridding Damascus of these followers of the Way. And then I secured letters from the High Priest, Caiaphas, giving me the authority to arrest any Jews in Damascus who were followers of Jesus. So I headed north, accompanied by some members of the Temple guard. It would turn out to be my last journey as a Pharisee because this was the day my life changed forever.

You heard the account read earlier this morning. “As [I ] neared Damascus on [my] journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around [me]. [I] fell to the ground and heard a voice say to [me], ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’” When I asked him who he was, he replied, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” I felt like I had just been crushed by 10 tons of rock. I was filled with fear, more fear that I had ever felt before in my life. The risen Lord Jesus appeared to me. I saw him with my own eyes. I heard him speak to me, the One we had put to death. And the worse thing of all, I had been wrong, dead wrong, about Jesus.

I said nothing. What could I have said? I had no excuses. There was nothing I could say to Jesus which would explain my fervor for wiping his name off the face of the earth. I was guilty—so guilty—and for the first time in my life I knew that I had nothing to stand on before God. Everything I had believed and thought was a lie.

When the initial shock of seeing Jesus was over, I opened my eyes but couldn’t see a thing. I was blind! Not being able to see anything caused me to focus all the more on what I was guilty of. All the pain I had brought others caused guilt and shame to flood my heart. I had wrongly imprisoned and persecuted so many of my fellow Jews. They had been right and I was in the wrong.

Worse yet, I had blasphemed the saving name of Jesus, the Son of God, over and over again these past few years. I had called him the worst names imaginable. I had even cursed him! The only name under heaven by which sinners are saved is the very name I had tried to erase from history.

Which meant one more terrible truth about me—I had been an agent of Satan. I was Satan’s pawn, being used to lead souls to hell, which is exactly where I was headed and so deserved to go. And all the while I thought I had earned a place in the highest heaven!

Three days later, exactly as Jesus had told me in a vision, Ananias came to visit me. He placed his hands on me and said, “Brother Saul.” At that point in my life those were the sweetest words I had ever heard. He called me one of his Christian brothers. That meant my horrible sins against Jesus were paid for. That meant Jesus had nothing against me. That meant heaven was mine because of what Jesus had done for me and in spite of what I had done against him.

What’s more, Ananias told me that he was there as God’s instrument to fill me with the Holy Spirit. “Immediately, something like scales fell from [my] eyes.” I could see once again! But more importantly, I was no longer spiritually blind. The Holy Spirit had called me by the gospel and had enlightened me with his gifts. And then I was baptized.

And the rest of my story is my walk with Jesus my Savior. I went to the synagogue there in Damascus and, instead of arresting Jewish Christians, I preached to the Jews gathered there that Jesus is the Son of God and the world’s Savior from sin. About 15 years later the Christians in Antioch sent me on my first missionary journey. During several such journeys I was able to preach about Jesus to countless people, calling them to believe that he is their Savior from sin. About 30 years after the day my life changed forever, I died as a martyr for the One who had changed my life forever.

That’s what a risen Jesus does. He changed my life forever.

Is your faith-story really that much different than mine? Sure you may not have spent a portion of your life arresting Christians and approving of their deaths. But the spiritual truth about every one of us is that we come into this world with no love for God; in fact, we’re hostile towards him. And you may not call yourself a Pharisee, but our natural spiritual opinion of ourselves is that we can keep God’s law and so earn our own salvation. And you may not have seen a flash of light and heard the voice of Jesus, but for many of you your life was changed eternally when you heard the words of Jesus, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and saw a gentle splash of water being applied to you. That’s when the God-hating Pharisee was driven out and replaced by the God-loving child of God. For others of you, you heard the saving message of Jesus. Someone took the time and effort to explain how Jesus lived and died and rose for you. That was the day your life changed eternally. How can that be? In a world full of words, why are those words different? Because the words of the gospel in God’s word and in Baptism are the words of the risen Lord Jesus. The words of the risen Lord Jesus are his power to change us eternally. And now they are the words to transform us daily. Which portions of your life need improving from a Christian standpoint? Where are your areas of spiritual weakness? What could you do to project Jesus more often to others by what you say and do? The answer to all those questions is in the transforming power of the risen Lord Jesus. That power comes to us in his word and sacrament. Plug into that power every day of your life, a life which has been changed forever. To God be the glory! Amen.