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+ In Nomine Jesu +

Saul took the Christian Faith seriously.  He took it seriously when he viewed it as a blasphemous abomination that needed to be stamped out.  He took it seriously when he breathed out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples, and arrested them, and persecuted them, and in general made their lives miserable. The Gospel of God’s free salvation through faith in Christ offended Saul in his self-righteousness, and so he fought against that Gospel.

Saul’s victims likewise took the Christian Faith seriously.  Why else would they be willing to suffer for the Name of Jesus?  Why else would they be willing to face exile, imprisonment, or even death because of their belief that Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior of the world?  People don’t suffer for something that’s not important to them.  They suffer for the big stuff – the essential stuff.  And for these early believers in Jesus Christ, who looked to Him for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven, their faith was the biggest, most important thing of all.

Today’s reading from Acts tells us how Saul set off on his murderous journey.  He had a heart full of hatred and a pocket full of letters from the high priest in Jerusalem to the synagogues in Damascus .  Those letters gave Saul the authority to do what he itched to do – ferret out and round up any believers in Jesus living in Damascus .  Those letters gave Saul the authority to clap any Christians he found in irons and haul them back to Jerusalem to face trial there.  Those letters gave Saul a free pass to persecute the fledgling Christian Church.

But Saul, the despiser of Jesus, Saul, the persecutor of the Church, never made it to Damascus .  As we shall see, he died there on the road to Damascus , struck down by the blinding revelation that this Jesus whom he persecuted was in very fact the One  Christians said He was:  The Christ, the Son of God, Lord, and Savior.

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus spoke to Saul from heaven.  Who are You, Lord? Saul asked, to which Jesus replied, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  Notice how with these words our Lord establishes identity with His Church, redeemed with His holy and precious blood.  In persecuting the Church, Saul was persecuting Jesus Himself.  In arresting the Christians he hated, Saul, you could say, was arresting Jesus Himself.  In plotting against and seeking to destroy the Church, Saul was plotting against and seeking to destroy Jesus Himself.

So intimate is our Lord’s union with His redeemed, forgiven people that the Bible calls the Church the body of Christ.  For our Savior has washed His people of their sins in the Word and water of Holy Baptism and united them to Himself.  He declares His forgiveness to them in the absolution and the preaching of the Gospel.  He nourishes them with His own true Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar.  He cares for His Church in all her conflicts, all her struggles, all her hardships.

By God’s grace, through faith in Jesus, you have been engrafted into the Church.  By this engrafting, you have been identified with your Savior Jesus forever, who in His Incarnation has forever identified Himself with you.  You have been redeemed by the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ.  You have been forgiven all your sins.  And He who suffered on the Cross for the sins of the world is now present with you in your sufferings, to strengthen and uphold you.  When your faith in Jesus, your loyalty to His Word, brings suffering your way, there also is Jesus, suffering alongside of you.  As the Scripture says, In all their afflictions, He was afflicted too.

So seeing how closely Jesus identifies Himself with His suffering flock, what would you expect Him, whom Saul was persecuting, to do?  Burn Saul to a crisp with a lightning bolt from heaven?  Strike him down with leprosy or some other dread disease?  Cause the earth to swallow him up as a blasphemer and reprobate?

That’s not what Jesus did.  Instead, marvelously, miraculously, He showed Saul His grace and mercy.  He made him a new creation, just as He did for you in your Baptism.  If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away, behold, all is made new.  Jesus brought him to faith, just as He did you.  Saul, the murderous persecutor of the Church died there on the road to Damascus , and a new Saul was born.  We know him today by his Roman name of Paul.  Saul died – and in his place we have Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul who counted his old life as a Pharisee loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord, Paul who resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, Paul who would boast in nothing except in the Cross of Jesus Christ.

As an unbeliever, Saul showed how seriously he took the Christian faith by persecuting the Church. As a believer, Paul showed how seriously he took the Christian Faith by preaching the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire, by suffering shipwreck, hunger, beatings, floggings, stoning, and, finally, decapitation for the Name of Jesus.  He who used to persecute the Church was now preaching the Faith he once tried to destroy.  How could this be?

The simple answer is this:  Because in Jesus Christ, Saul/Paul found the assurance of salvation, forgiveness and mercy that he could never find in his attempts to keep the Law of God and attain a righteousness of his own.  Paul knew himself to be a great sinner; in fact, in his first letter to Timothy, he forthrightly confessed himself to be the chief of sinners. 

I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent man, Paul wrote of himself.  He didn’t try to cover up his sins, he didn’t try to whitewash his former life and conceal what he had been and done.  Paul wasn’t interested in making himself look good.  He wanted the God who had had mercy upon him, who had forgiven and redeemed him, sinner though he was, to look good.  And so Paul wrote, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  Paul gladly named himself a sinner because he knew that by grace, God had named him a saint, had forgiven and justified him, for Jesus’ sake.

You and I must likewise never hesitate to name ourselves as sinners.  We have boldness to confess our sins because we know that God has given Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  For there is one God, and there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all.  So repent and confess your sin, but confess more boldly that you have a Mediator, Jesus Christ, who has taken your sin away by giving Himself as a ransom for all mankind.  You can’t save yourself – you aren’t good enough, strong enough, holy enough to do that.  But Jesus Christ is good enough, strong enough, holy enough.  His resurrection after His death on the Cross proves it.  And because Jesus has died for you and been raised again for you and has washed you of your sins in holy Baptism and given you faith in the Triune God and gives you His life and salvation in the Sacrament of the Altar, you now have complete forgiveness of all your sins.  You have eternal life.  You will be raised again at the last day.  You,  the Scripture says, have a future and a hope.

This is why Paul the Apostle took the Christian Faith seriously, why he was willing to face hardship, sufferings and even death for the sake of Jesus Christ his Savior.  This is why you should take the Christian Faith seriously too. 

One of our members, I. A. Travis, put it as well as anyone when he said:  It’s either Jesus Christ or the devil – there’s no splitting it down the middle.  St. Paul would have added a hearty amen to that.  For Paul knew that it’s either Jesus Christ and His salvation or eternal separation from God.  It’s either Jesus Christ and His mercy and forgiveness or  a righteous God’s eternal wrath.  There is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.  In Him we have the forgiveness of all our sins.  In Him we are reconciled to God.  In Him we are a new creation.  Truly, faith in Jesus Christ is a Faith to be taken seriously.

And take it seriously we do, when we come to the Divine Service to confess our sins and receive forgiveness and to be strengthened in our faith in Jesus.  For here where the Gospel is proclaimed and the Sacraments are celebrated, we stand in fellowship with Christians of every age who have taken their faith seriously.  We stand in fellowship with all who are rescued from death and hell for the sake of Jesus Christ.