“When God Knocks You Off Your Horse”
Sermon Series on the Book of Acts
(Acts 9:1-195)
June 26, 2005
Rev. Keith Vandegrift

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the passage we have just read for the history of the Christian Church.  The conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the self-righteous and brutal persecutor of the early Christians, to St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles and author of much of the New Testament, is a monumental event in church history. 

God so radically changed Saul’s life in the events of Acts 9:1-19 that he took a new name that signified a revolution in his life.  Paul came to understand like very few Jewish people of his time that God was doing a new thing including the Gentiles into the faith.  He became the champion of all of those who were ethnically separated from covenant with God and became one of the driving forces behind the mission of the Kingdom of God to include all peoples in the New Covenant of Grace.  Paul authored 13 of the 27 “books” of the New Testament (they were letters to the congregations of Christians in various places, but are the foundational documents for much Christian teaching.)

Paul, in his zeal to take the gospel where it was never preached before, was the first person to hear the call of God to cross over to Europe from Asia.  So he is the one of the people we can thank God for because indirectly he is responsible for the reality that we have heard and believed the Good News.

But Saul of Tarsus was a tough case.  He was completely convinced that he was right.  He was proud and absolutist, not just in his convictions, but in his perception of his convictions.  The narrative of his persecution of the church reveals a man who had few doubts about his beliefs or his actions based upon those beliefs.  Saul believed that the ways that the followers of the Way had deviated from historic Jewish orthodoxy could not possibly be of God.  In his mind, this was just another of the many sects that grew up in those days around someone’s charismatic personality and usually petered out after a few years, but not before deceiving a number of people.

But Saul was not one to be persuaded by arguments.  His mind was not that open.  It took a revelation of the risen Lord Jesus himself to convince Saul to change his ways.  In Paul’s mind, the appearance of Christ to him on the Damascus road was every bit as meaningful as the Lord’s appearances to the disciples who went to his tomb in the garden, and his other appearances before his ascension.  As he says in Galatians 1:11 “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.  I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”  That revelation began here when he’d been knocked off his horse and continued as he went away into the Arabian desert before he began his ministry as a Christian.

I think we can admire Saul’s deep Jewish conviction before his conversion.  He was faithful to what he understood from his tradition as a Pharisee, but he lacked information provided by the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus.  In such statements as“I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” and “You have heard it was said to ancient ones, but I say to you . . .” Jesus revealed himself as God.  His resurrection confirmed that claim.  That changed everything, but Saul wouldn’t see it.  He was blinded not just by his convictions, but by his proud assurance that his perceptions could not be mistaken.

You may have heard conversations that we Christians believe in absolute truth.  Indeed, we do.  Or at least, most of the church most of the time has believed that the “faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) is absolute because it depends upon the revelation of God and not the thoughts of humans.  The truth we cling to as Christians depends upon God’s character and integrity which is eternal and sovereign, and so does not depend on the shifting winds of human opinion.  “Our anchor holds within the vale” in the words of the old hymn. (“On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand”)

We live now in an intellectual climate that finds such claims to absolute truth as somewhat absurd, if not utterly arrogant to the point of being rude.  To assume that we know something that is righter and truer than everybody who might believe something different, has come to be called “intolerance.”  And intolerance these days is not just putting up with people with whom we disagree, but is increasingly being defined as any set of beliefs that claims it is right to the exclusion of any contradictory claims.  Any claims to absolute truth are more and more seen to be foolish.

Yet to be Christian, at least as it has been defined for most of the past two thousand years, means that we hold our convictions with what one theologian has called “universal intent.” (Lesslie Newbigin)  That is, we believe that it is not merely true “for us” but is true for all people everywhere because God is personal and infinite and has revealed it as true for all. 

We must be careful in our conviction about absolute truth.  We do believe in absolutes, but our perception of them and comprehension of absolutes is relative to our limited abilities.  Humility requires of us that we all bring our subjective experience and perceptions to God’s absolute truth, so we must be willing to admit that we do not understand absolutes perfectly or absolutely, but only relatively and contingently.  What we believe we believe to be absolutely true, but our understanding of those great truths is partial, flawed, seen “through a glass darkly” (I. Corinthians 13:12 KJV).

To behave in such a way that we indicate we know it all and are not possibly mistaken in any of our beliefs is to commit the sin of pride that got Saul of Tarsus knocked off his horse and blinded.  Saul not only believed that he knew absolute truth, he believed he knew it absolutely.  This was one of his biggest mistakes as a Pharisee.  There is a lesson for contemporary Christians in this attitude of Saulaul’s; that lesson is humility.  We must simultaneously hold passionately to the eternal truth of God as revealed in scripture, but be radically open to listen carefully to the differing opinions of those who disagree with us. 

But when he was stunned and blinded, Saul knew enough to ask the right question:  “Who are you Lord.”  It was self-evident that a powerful person had knocked him down and blinded him.  It was self-evident that something dramatic was happening – something along the lines of the call of Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel if you compare what happened to them when God called them and what happened here to Saul.  For someone as steeped in ancient scripture as was Saul, he instinctively knew that he was having an encounter with the Living God, and responded with proper reverence.

His question is one that we would all be wise to ask when we have the experience of getting “knocked off our horse.”  When we’re going along and it seems like life is turning out pretty well for us, and we’re pretty sure of ourselves and our way of life, and then we experience a great reversal of fortune, we should stop and ask, “Who are you, Lord?”

Implicit in that question are a number of other questions:  “Why is this happening?  God, what are you up to here?  How should I respond to this dramatic turn of events?”  These can be faithful questions that seek to respond properly to our misfortunes.  They echo the faith of the patriarch Joseph who when confronting his brothers for the first time after they had betrayed him said, “You meant it for evil, but God for good.” 

I’m aware as I stand here preaching this morning that on any given Sunday, a number of people in our church family feel like Saul on the ground in the road to Damascus wondering what just hit them.  That may be the case for those of you who have recently lost a job.  It may be the case for those of you who have lost a marriage recently; or have suffered a downturn in your health; or who thought you knew where you were headed with your life but now find yourself completely confused. 

Let me encourage you to ask the right question in this time of limited insight:  “Who are you Lord?”  Those of us traveling with you on our journey of faith stand simultaneously speechless as we watch you struggle, and also ready to join you as you move toward your own Damascus and your encounter with someone like Ananias.  Like him, we will receive you like a sister or brother, lay our hands on you, and pray that something like scales will drop from your eyes.

God changed the world through Saul who became Paul the Apostle.  Things were not the same for the church and eventually the world because of Paul’s encounter with God we have looked at today.  He may be doing something similar in your world since you’ve been knocked off your horse.  Join me now in prayer as we ask God to reveal himself to us even more clearly as we struggle to see.