Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Gary Olson.

Please read Acts 9:1-19a

It’s hard to admit you are wrong. It’s hard to change course. Conversion is needed. God is a specialist in that. God uses people like Ananias to help us see our way. 

Saul of Tarsus probably learned Judaism as a child in the local synagogue much as many of us learned our faith in the churches of our youth. Young Saul went on to Jerusalem and studied with Gamaliel, his mentor in Judaism and a prominent teacher of the day. Saul was so accomplished he became a Pharisee and rose in the ranks of Judaism. Some think he became a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Judaism and of Israel. We do not know that for certain. But he surely worked closely with them as defender of the faith. He was devoted to the ways and laws of Judaism. 

Saul did not know Jesus but he surely knew the account of the empty tomb. He did not believe the resurrection. Perhaps he believed the fictional story that Jesus’ disciples opened the tomb and stole the body away while the official guards slept. We don’t know his thinking. 

We do know Saul was not only an academic, he was a rabid activist for Judaism. When Christianity came to Jerusalem, Saul was incensed that people of Jewish faith were believing in the resurrection of Jesus; that they were following his teachings; that they were becoming people of the Way as Christianity was known at the beginning. 

I think Saul was offended by it—was threatened by it. So he did all he could to exterminate the Way and its faith in Jesus. He rounded up as many believers in Christ as he could in Jerusalem and had them imprisoned. Then he asked for papers to travel to Damascus to imprison Christ followers there. Saul was rabid! It’s hard to hope for change in a person like that. 

We are tempted to fight back also when threatened by something we do not understand. When I was a boy, I had a friend, Mike. Mike was a Roman Catholic who thought his church was better than my Lutheran Church because his church had seven sacraments and “your church only has two,” he told me. “Not true,” I said. “We have seven sacraments too!” I said, making it up in order to win. “Naw, Naw, you just have Baptism and Communion,” he thrust back at me. I went and asked my pastor, a kind of Ananias, who said, “Gary, Mike is right, we have two and they have seven.” I felt my face get red. “But that isn’t the important thing,” said Pastor Bjorkman. “What’s important is what we believe about God’s love coming in Jesus. You could tell Mike that.” 

It’s hard to change. Ask any alcoholic. There is God’s love though. 

Process theologian John Cobb says Saul did not come to belief in Jesus because of the empty tomb. It was on Saul’s way to Damascus when the bright light blinded him and he heard the voice, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” “Who are you?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” It was then, says Cobb, that Saul knew Jesus was alive. Ananias came to Saul in Damascus and baptized him. Today we call him the Apostle Paul. 

It’s hard to admit you are wrong. It’s hard to change course. Conversion is needed. The power of God’s love, sometimes tough love, can do that. I pray for it often with all that is going on in the world; with the power plays authoritarian leaders in the world are making. I pray for the power of God’s tough love. I pray for God to work through contemporary Ananias’s.