The final sermon is the sixth of six in the series entitled The Easter People, presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title is Paul. As St. Paul concluded his summary of the resurrection appearances of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, he finished with this comment, Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. As to one untimely born. One born out of the right season.

Paul was not one of the twelve. He was not an apostle. He was not one of the much larger company of followers of Jesus.

He was in no sense a disciple. He was not an eyewitness to any of these things. He was a contemporary of Jesus, but so far as we know, they never met during Jesus' earthly life.

He may in fact have been slightly older than Jesus, but we can't tell for sure. By his own description to the Philippians, Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Elsewhere he calls himself a Pharisee of the Pharisees.

He was a zealot for the law. both for following it himself and for enforcing it on others. He was a thoroughly Jewish Jew.

You need to understand a little bit of what it means to have been a scrupulously observant Pharisee. It's pretty far removed, I think, from most of us. But just for instance, by age five, he would have memorized the book of Leviticus.

By age 12, he would have been thoroughly familiar, I mean saturated, with the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, the books of Moses. After that would come further studies in the Psalms, the Prophets, and eventually the whole of the Old Testament. As a Pharisee, he would know this book.

But he would also know the interpretations of it. It had interpretation upon interpretation. And in particular, the concern had to do with the laws, the ordinances, the statutes of God.

And it's often said that the Pharisee was a lover of the law. That is not really terribly accurate. The Pharisee's supreme question, indeed the passion of his life, really is to be expressed in a kind of a negative way.

What must I do to avoid breaking the law? Did you hear me? It's not what must I do to fulfill it, not what must I do to keep the law, what must I do to avoid breaking the law.

And what that leads to is spelling out an ever-increasing number of clarifications. The question is asked, an answer comes, and then it's yes, but. How does that apply in this particular situation?

What about these qualifying circumstances? And if you look for it, you'll see that all over the place in the New Testament. Jesus, for instance, at one point says, The whole law is summed up in one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's it. Love your neighbor and you will have fulfilled the whole law.

And what does the Pharisee say? Yes, but, who is my neighbor? See, I understand that, but if there are some folks who are not my neighbor, then not loving them is not breaking the law.

You get it? Yes, but. And immediately a qualification.

Pharisee then is not so much a lover of the law as he is a lover of loopholes. Tell me how I get around this one. the law says that it's my responsibility to care for my elderly parents.

I have a financial obligation to take care of my elderly parents. Pharisee says, yes, but if you dedicate your wealth to the Lord, that means, in essence, I put it in my will that when I die it all goes to the church, then I'm freed up from that law and I don't have to take care of my parents. even though I'm spending the money while I live, on myself.

It's called the law of Korban. Yes, but, see, here's how I get around it. The law says I must do no work on the Sabbath.

Among other things, I may not carry things. That's doing work, carrying things. I can only go a certain distance.

It's called a Sabbath day's journey. The Pharisee says, yes, but, it depends where you start measuring it from. So I'll tell you what I'll do.

Just in case I have to go see those folks, I'll leave a suitcase halfway there, and we won't consider that I've begun my journey until I pick up my suitcase. No, this is absolutely serious. Yes, but, you see.

So there is a scrupulous observance of the laws, with an S on it, the many, many, many, many laws, But most of them are designed to limit the law. It applies up to this point and beyond that, I'm free. If you go to Jerusalem today, go to the Holy Land today, you'll notice something.

Immediately the Sabbath begins. All the hotel elevators go on automatic. Do you know why?

Because if you push the button to call the elevator, you're making a connection that is technically creating a spark, which is making fire. and to make fire on the Sabbath is to do work and it's forbidden. So they all go on automatic.

So you don't have to do work in order to call the elevator. Now, in fact, what happens is that means it stops at every floor. It never gets there and you end up being so frustrated you walk down 20 flights carrying your bag, see.

But the idea of it was, I've been there. That's what I did. The idea of it was, I want to ride the elevator, see?

Here's how I get around the law. Put it on automatic. Setting limits so that I can walk through the minefield of all these laws of God without being blown up by them.

Now don't misunderstand, the Pharisee gets a lot of bad rap, and I don't mean to do that at one level. The Pharisee, you would love to have Pharisees living on either side of you. First of all, their lawns will be absolutely immaculate, and they'll probably take care of yours as well, unless it rubs off on them, you know.

And secondly, they will be scrupulously honest. I mean, you can trust your car, your lawnmower, your tools, your wife, to the Pharisee, you're safe. The problem is that in the midst of all that, The Pharisee has the opinion that God's favor is something that I must earn.

And when you stop and ask me about it, as a matter of fact, I think I've done a pretty good job in earning it. That's his worldview. God's favor is something that I've got to earn, and I think I've done pretty well.

You remember Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. It says, two men went up to the temple to pray. Tax collector stood there.

He wouldn't even lift up his eyes. He kept beating his breast. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

And the Pharisee stood afar off. You can just sort of picture him looking down his nose at this tax collector over here. And his prayer is, I thank you, God, that I'm not like other men.

Adulterers, extortioners, unjust, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week I tithe all that I get interesting prayer it says he prayed thus to himself five times in two sentences he says I, I, I, I, I, I if you think Jesus overstated the case let me just quote you from the Talmud it records Rabbi Simeon Ben-Jokai as saying this I have seen the children of the world to come, and they are few. If there are three, I and my son are among them.

If there are two, I and my son are they. Thank you very much. We've made it.

You get it? We define what the law is. I mean, we spell it out in incredible detail.

In Jesus' day there were 1,521 specific things that you couldn't do on the Sabbath. Spell it out, tell me exactly what is required, and then, thank you very much, I will attend to that. That was Paul's worldview while he was Saul.

Before his conversion, that was his worldview. He said, as far as I was concerned as to righteousness under the law, I was blameless. Can you say that?

As far as righteousness under the law is concerned, I was blameless. Now if you can begin to get inside of that mentality, you begin to appreciate what an incredible threat the gospel is to all of that. Here you've spent your whole life constructing this world of personal blamelessness.

Rule upon rule, precept upon precept, statute upon statute, interpretation upon interpretation, and along comes this gospel proclamation. All of that, all of it, all of it is irrelevant. You've missed the point.

It is not keeping all of those laws. If you want to do it that way, Paul, the standard is absolute perfection, not 1,521 things that you haven't done wrong. Absolute perfection.

Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. That's the standard. Not wiggling through some loophole.

and before almighty, holy, unspeakably holy God, you're just as bad as the worst prostitute, the worst murderer, the worst tax collector that ever came down the pike. Paul says, you dare to say that to me? Yeah, Paul, you have sinned.

That's the bad news. Now, you can't even begin to appreciate the good news that Jesus comes to offer you a fresh beginning, forgiveness of sin, and His own righteousness, unless you understand your plight. That just flies in the face of everything that Paul has ever come to believe on the subject.

The law, the scriptures, the priesthood, the temple, the sacrifices, the whole way of life. Judaism itself is under attack as far as Paul is concerned, and that attack must be stopped. In fact, worse than that, people are actually worshipping an executed criminal who had presumed to blaspheme against the Holy One of Israel.

And if that weren't bad enough, Jesus' claims to divinity also constitute claims to sovereignty in the political world. That's sedition against the empire. It must.

be stopped. It must be stopped. And Paul enlists to stop it.

Jesus said the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. That's what Paul thought. I'm serving God. I've got to stop those Christians.

If we don't stop the Christians, the Romans are going to come down on all of us. We've got to stop them. Paul recounted his conversion in Acts chapter 22, and he puts it this way.

He says, I'm a Jew born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the great teachers of the law, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers being zealous for God as you all are to this day I persecuted this way this way the Christians I persecuted this way to the death binding and delivering to prison both men and women as the high priest and the whole council of elders bear me witness from them I received letters to the brethren and I journeyed to Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. That was my mission. Paul was breathing threats and murder, chasing Christians from one city to the next.

He was under orders of Annas the high priest who was president of the Sanhedrin and as such his authority reached even over national boundaries. Wherever there was a synagogue the high priest's word applied and so Paul had authority to go from house to house, just like the Gestapo, finding those Christians, punish them, torture them, kill them, do what you have to do, but stop them. In the last three weeks, we've gone from the doubt of Thomas through the ridicule of James.

Now we come to persecution and murder on the part of Saul of Tarsus. but he goes on as I made my journey and drew near to Damascus about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me Saul, Saul why do you persecute me? and I answered who are you Lord?

and he said to me I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, rise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.

When I could not see, because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. Can you picture it? Here he is with his little band of soldiers.

He's got his marching orders. They're ready to go and do whatever they have to do. The Romans pretty much are leaving the care of the Jews to the Sanhedrin.

So he's going to arrest, to persecute, to torture, to kill Christians. And all of a sudden, he's confronted with Jesus himself. He's alive.

It's all true. It's all horribly true. what for Thomas was too good to be true for Paul is too true to be good he's alive and he's surrounded by the Shekinah glory of God the blinding, literally blinding glory of God Paul falls to his knees who are you Lord?

I am Jesus and you're persecuting me you touch my followers you're touching me what do you want me to do go to Damascus you'll be told you know Klaus Barbie is on trial right now in France so called butcher of Lyon and it's said that the witnesses and victims of his crimes 40 years ago fall apart emotionally, when they come to the stand and recount the things that happened way back then, 40 years ago. Can you imagine little Ananias, little quiet Christian somewhere in Damascus? God says, I want you to go down to Straight Street, and there's somebody there that I need you to minister to.

I want you to lay hands on him and pray for him. He temporarily is blinded. I want you to pray for him, anoint him with oil.

I want you to baptize him and welcome him as a brother. And he says, who is that? Saul.

Saul. Butcher of Damascus. But he goes.

Because if Jesus could forgive the thief on the cross and the soldiers who whipped him and the governor who condemned him and the friend who betrayed him and the other one who denied him and all those who deserted him, he could forgive Saul. Aren't you glad? He can forgive you.

And Ananias found the strength and the courage to go and do all that in the name of the Lord. Paul was given a prophetic message from the Lord Jesus Himself. Rise and stand upon your feet for I have appeared to you for this purpose.

to anoint you to serve and bear witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles to whom I send you to open their eyes, just as I've opened your eyes, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. isn't it interesting I didn't hear Jesus ask Paul what he thought about all that I have appeared to you for this purpose I have called you I anoint you I am sending you that's the way it is now I assume Paul could have said no but thank God he didn't You see, somewhere in the midst of his misguided zeal, there was still a heart for God. He had it all wrong, but his heart was to serve God.

And God reached right down there sovereignly, right down into the middle of his life and grabbed hold of him. And said, I've appointed you. That's the way it is.

The astonishing thing is what he went on to say to the Galatians, that God revealed to him the facts of the gospel. He said, I learned it from no man. Nobody taught me this.

I went through no catechism class. God revealed it by supernatural revelation to me. In fact, it was a total of 17 years before he went up and checked it out with James and Peter and John.

And they said, yeah, you got it right. That's exactly what happened. See, God made him an eyewitness after the fact.

He was not an eyewitness, but God made him an eyewitness. He made him one of the Easter people after the fact. God took this zealous but misguided Pharisee and turned him into the mightiest apostle of all.

How different, how different all of history, the whole world, would have been were it not for what God did through Saul who became Paul. He took this Hebrew of the Hebrews who had had such pride in his spiritual accomplishments. He took him to the point of being able to say the things that I used to think were so important I now consider refuse.

In fact, it's a much stronger word than that. dung. My accomplishments.

We all have things in our lives that we consider refuse. He's not saying the bad thing. He's saying the things that I used to take greatest pride in.

My best accomplishments. I now consider dung. Because they stood in the way.

So long as I was trusting in what I had done, I missed it completely. They are refuse in comparison with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. The goal of my life is now simply that I might know Him, be found in Him, and become like Him.

Is that the goal of your life? Really? Seriously?

Is that the goal of your life? In the King James Version he says, I press on to apprehend that for which I have been apprehended. I press on to make my own that for which Jesus Christ made me His own.

Are you pressing on to apprehend that for which you've been apprehended? You say, I haven't been apprehended. Nothing like that ever happened to me.

Oh, yes it did. You don't come to faith except by the sovereign act of God. Please, please, don't say to me, I have decided to follow Jesus.

Because you really didn't. He said, you did not choose me, I chose you. And appointed you that you should bear much fruit, and your fruit should remain. It may not have been quite as dramatic as was St. Paul's. But if you are a Christian today, it's because Jesus Christ Himself has apprehended you.

And He's got a purpose for your life. He's got a claim upon you. He's got something for you to do.

Maybe it'll change the world as much as did this man's life. Maybe it won't. Maybe it'll only touch a few. Maybe the world will never hear about it until that great day.

But He's apprehended you for a purpose. And our response to that is to follow after that purpose, follow after that Lord Jesus in whatever He calls us to. Well, we come to the end of this brief series.

There are so many more that we could look at. In fact, John's Gospel says there are many other things that Jesus did were they all to be written down. The world itself could not contain all the books that would be written.

But these are some of the Easter people. Jesus met each one where he or she was right in the midst of that particular need. He does that with us.

He came and swallowed up the desolation of Mary Magdalene. Turned her sorrow into joy. He came and washed away the despair of Simon Peter.

forgave his guilt and gave him a new heart. He spoke in piercing words of Scripture to the disillusionment of Cleopas and his friend. He welcomed the nagging doubt of Thomas and gave him proof positive.

Somehow, he spoke to the derision of his own half-brother James. And now, praise God, he reaches down into the religious delusion the self-righteous Pharisee named Saul and makes him the mighty apostle who changed the world. He comes to do all that and more in each one of our lives.

He comes to give us life in all of its abundance that we might know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that we might also share with Him eternal life. he comes to include us you and me in the company of the Easter people let's bow our heads together dear Lord Jesus Christ thank you for so loving me I ask you now to reach still more deeply into my life as you did into that of Saul. Claim it for your own.

Use it for your purposes. Be exalted in and through me for your own namesake. Amen.