1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word today for the 3rd Sunday of Easter is taken from Acts 9:1-22. Here we see that Saul meets Jesus, and everything changes. Today we discover that when we meet Jesus, everything changes. Meeting Jesus, risen and alive, makes a difference in every area of our lives. The message is entitled, “Meeting Jesus Changes Everything,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. I would like you to remember a time in your life when who you were and where you were headed changed. Something happened that altered the trajectory of your life. Maybe a new relationship, a job change, a different college major, a death of someone close to you, a tragedy, or an amazing celebration. But now you’re headed in a different direction. You’ve changed. Life has changed. This weekend our Confirmands are going through a life changing event, confirming the faith they received in their baptism, and promising to remain faithful to Jesus as their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives.
3. For me, one such time was back in my first year of college. I had planned to be a business major. I remember my first year at Concordia University St. Paul, back in 1999. I was taking my general education courses and quickly discovered that math wasn’t my strong suit. I was having difficulty in my Statistics and Precalculus classes and quickly realized that the Lord had prepared me through my upbringing in Lutheran Education to consider becoming a Pastor, especially since when I was in Confirmation Class in the mid ‘90s, my Pastor John Zahrte had taken me aside and told me that I should consider becoming a Pastor. So, I changed my major to Theology and began my Pre-Seminary Classes. As I look back now, 26 years since I entered college, I can see how the trajectory of my life changed since that first year in college. Do you have a time in your life, maybe a big event, or some smaller times put together, where you see your life changed?
4. The apostle Paul, as a young man known by his Hebrew name, Saul, could name such a time. Saul wanted to eliminate the church. He starts wreaking havoc on those who follow the way of Jesus shortly after Christ’s resurrection. He’s determined to find every last Christian and have them thrown into jail or murdered. When Stephen proclaims how the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus and his resurrection, Saul listens, with hatred in his heart. When the stones rain down on Stephen, making him the first martyr of the church, Saul nods his head in agreement. He receives the garments laid at his feet to show he approves of this gruesome death.
5. Then comes the defining moment of his life. Saul is traveling to Damascus, papers in hand to arrest anyone who claims Jesus as Lord and Savior. Suddenly the blinding light flashes, and Saul comes face to face with Jesus: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul can only ask, “Who are you, Lord?” Now Saul will hear words that will change him forever. “I am Jesus.” Imagine how those words must have stung when Saul heard him. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”
6. Saul can’t see. He has to be led into Damascus. For three days, he waits, fasts, and remembers all that he has done to ravage the church. For three days, “I am Jesus” penetrates every thought, feeling, and bone in his body. It will be the defining moment of his life. Now the Old Testament comes alive like never before as he realizes the prophecies have been fulfilled in Jesus. Now Stephen’s testimony comes back to haunt him—but also to give him life. Now he knows everything is about to change.
7. Ananias arrives. He lays his hands on Saul. Eyesight restored. Filled with the Holy Spirit. Baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. He eats. He is strengthened by food and by the welcome from Ananias. From someone who once feared him and whom he had hated, Saul hears another blessed word: “Brother.” Ananias calls him a brother in the faith, a fellow follower of Jesus. Saul has joined the church.
8. Listen to what has changed. From writing letters to arrest believers to writing letters upon which the church has relied on and will rely on until Jesus comes back again. From one who brought such suffering to the church, he will now suffer for the name of Jesus. From one who arrested believers, he will now be arrested time and again. From one who was so zealous to liquidate the church, he now starts churches in city after city. From one who was hated and feared, he now is welcomed as an apostle of Christ. From one who has depended on what he did and his family background to be right with God, he now depends solely on Christ for his righteousness in the sight of God. Those words changed everything for Saul. “I am Jesus.” Paul, as we better remember him now, met the resurrected Jesus, alive and glorified, and everything changed.
9. None of us will have that same dramatic experience that Paul had. But we are changed by the risen Jesus just the same. Here’s how. Paul needed forgiveness. He needed to repent. He needed faith. He needed Jesus. He certainly needed all this for what he had done to the church before his conversion. But after that visit by Ananias, don’t put Paul on a pedestal. Don’t make him perfect. When he wrote the letter to the Romans years later, he confessed that the good he wanted to do, he still didn’t always do. The evil he wanted to avoid, sometimes he ended up doing anyway. He wanted to delight in God’s Law, but the law of sin still plagued him. Listen to his confession: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). But Paul knew Jesus had died for the sins of the whole world. So, he answers his own question. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25). You can hear his confidence in his forgiveness when he goes on to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
10. Paul also proclaims what more Jesus did for him—and what Jesus, risen from the dead, does for us too. Listen carefully: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). Just like Paul, we need to repent. We need faith. We need forgiveness. We need Jesus.
11. I remember a pastor I knew who admitted that when he was young he misheard one word in our confession of sins: “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them” (LSB, p 291). It was the word “heartily” he messed up. He said instead that he was “hardly” sorry for his sins. That changes everything. He was saying he wasn’t all that sorry for what he did wrong. But then he realized what needed to be said. So do we. We need to be heartily sorry for them and truly repent of them.
12. You need Jesus, risen from the dead, to forgive you. I do too. And remember, Jesus forgave Paul, who’d tried to destroy the church, and no longer condemned him. He forgives you for whatever haunts your life, whatever you heartily confess in repentance. Blessed words. “I am Jesus. Risen from the dead. I do not condemn you. You are mine forever.” That changes everything, for now we stand righteous in God’s eyes.
13. I wasn’t quite accurate when I said we haven’t had a dramatic experience like Paul did that changed his whole life. For many of us, we did. Not in the same way as Paul had that day. No blinding light. No words we could hear Jesus speak in his own voice from heaven. But we did meet Jesus, and he spoke to us in a way that changed our lives. At the moment of your baptism, you met Jesus. Through the sacrament of baptism you have new birth and the forgiveness of sins. The white garment received in baptism shows you’ve been clothed with Christ’s righteousness so you don’t need to fear Christ’s judgment seat. The burning light shows you now walk in the light, not the darkness. Then, you were welcomed as a sister or brother in Christ. Paul heard Ananias say, “Brother” (Acts 9:17). If you were baptized as a baby, you do not remember that moment, but the Rite of Baptism in our hymnal suggests what the congregation said: “We welcome you in the name of the Lord.”
14. What happened to Paul happens to us. Jesus comes to each one of us and says, “I am Jesus. I am your brother. You need not fear what you have done. You are forgiven. You are covered by my righteousness. No condemnation. Just an eternity with all your brothers and sisters and the whole host of heaven.” That moment has changed everything for you and me. Meeting Jesus, risen and alive, makes a difference in every area of our lives.
15. The trajectory of our lives is now forever joined to the risen Jesus. He meets us every day of our lives to give us direction and purpose. Who we are has been determined by our Lord and Savior, alive and present in every part of life. What we say or don’t say, do or don’t do, think or don’t think, what we do with our time or money, how we treat others, how we take care of ourselves. The whole of our lives is lived under those wonderful words: “I am Jesus, and by your baptism into my death and resurrection, you are welcomed into my church, to share eternity with your brothers and sisters in the faith.” Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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