THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

One of the hard realities of reading the Bible is that it is filled with some really bad people and some really harsh events. We talk about love and God being love and Jesus telling us to love and then we sit down and read Bible stories and love is often hard to find. The world is a harsh place and God in giving us his word reflects that. God doesn’t try to cover our life in hearts and flowers - God is very real in revealing what people are actually like. But God also tries to help us see what things could be like. That after all is the story of the Garden of Eden. God shows us this beautiful garden, full of everything a person could possibly want. Serene and peaceful. God even comes to visit and stroll in the evenings. “This is what things can be like for all eternity” God says. “If you just don’t do the one thing I’ve asked you not to do.” And we all know what happens.... Adam and Eve do the one thing they are not suppose to and it is all down hill from there. The message then is ‘If only we could really listen and practice what God tells us what a different story we would hear.’ What a different world it would be.
But the world in the early chapters of Genesis got worse and worse. Cain kills Abel, the tower of Babel is attempted and God has to intervene until God finally says, “Enough! You all have become so terribly wicked that I’m going to have to stop and start all over.”
It is then that we have the flood story with Noah and his family and all of humanity is wiped out. Not a pretty story when you really think about what happened. I want you to think about what a horrific event this really is. Noah and the family get on the boat and God seals them in. The water comes and the boat starts to rise up on the top of the water, and crowds of people are below screaming and jumping and pleading as the water covers them. Can you imagine what that must have been like for Noah? I always thought that God sealed Noah into the boat, not so Noah couldn’t get out but so that his heart wouldn’t break for all the people who are crying out to be saved from drowning and open the door and let them in. Just a devastating picture as all of humanity except for Noah and his family are dying. The sadness is that when Noah gets a chance to start over; when Noah and his family have the opportunity to hear God say, “OK. You have the chance now to begin anew. Live as I’ve asked you to and you can live in love and peace and joy.” And they don’t life as God directs them and life degrades once again.
In a way it is kind of depressing - God is dangling this perfect life out in front of us like a carrot on a stick and saying “This is what you can have! If you only do what I tell you. You can have this” And we longingly look at it and think “Wouldn’t that be wonderful. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live this life of peace and joy and contentment. Wouldn’t it be nice to be plopped down in the Garden of Eden. No cares, no worries. Serene and peaceful.........” Then we wake up from that momentary daydream and back into our life of schedules and work and problems and bad news and disasters.....
So the Bible begins to deal with the problem of how we can live with peace and joy and love and serenity in a world that seems to have everything but that. Our reaction is that it is impossible. We read the newspaper or we just look around at the people we have to deal with on a daily basis and we don’t see a whole lot of peace and joy and love and serenity and we can’t have those things because we have to deal with the other people who don’t have those things! But God says - “If you are willing to have faith. If you are willing to listen to me. If you are willing to let me transform you, then having love and joy and peace and serenity is very much possible. But, you have to give up on your own understanding and let me take over.” And that is when we start to have all these stories in the Bible about transformation. Stories of how people can change and what a difference that makes in their life and the lives of the people around them! And how this personal transformation can bring a life of love, peace and joy when everything around you is falling apart. What we can finally come to understand is that the world is not going to change, but we, as individuals who trust in God, can. And that is what it is all about - allowing God to change us so we can live with a sense of peace.
Most of these transformation stories are extremes. It is almost as if God is saying, “Look what I can do with this really, really bad person. So imagine what I could do with you!” We read about one of these extreme cases today from the book of Chronicles. We have the story of a man is so horribly monstrous that we can’t even imagine that he could change - or that we would want anything to do with him even if he did change. And, we wonder, he did such terrible things, how can God just forgive him? We’d have him in the electric chair - or worse - but God forgives him and transforms him. Just a real quick summary of this evil man - Hezekiah was the King of Israel and was a good man. During his reign as King he was about to bring the whole nation to prosperity because he promoted the true worship of God. He was able to refocus God’s people back into living and worshipping as God had called them to live and worship and they had a taste of that peace and joy and serenity that God talks about. When Hezekiah died, his son Manasseh came to the throne and he was a whole different animal. Manasseh had a better idea. This worship of God stuff was boring. So Manasseh destroys all the local synagogues, he mandates the national religion to the pagan worship of Baal. He built all these statues of Baal and his wife Asherah all over Israel and the people were led to bow down and worship these statues. Manasseh took all of the sacred furniture out of the temple and brought in all his pagan images into the temple so they could be worshipped there. He practiced witchcraft and sorcery and promoted all manner of immorality in the name of worship. He led the whole people of God away from worshipping the God to this life of pagan worship and immorality and practices that would make us cringe. Including - and here is where we just shudder - the sacrificing of children to the pagan gods by throwing them in what they called the ‘offering fires’. And Manasseh did this with his own children.... Is there redemption in our minds for someone like this? God says ‘Yes’, and that is the point of the story. God through a series of events wakes Manasseh up, Manasseh asks for forgiveness - and the scripture actually says - and God was satisfied that he really had repented. And God transforms Manasseh and Manasseh then leads the whole nation back to the true worship of God. He destroys all the idols, re-establishes the temple and the synagogues and peace is restored to the nation. An amazing, amazing transformation. And again that picture of chaos and evil being transformed into peace and joy and love and serenity.
Which brings us to Paul. The life of Paul can teach us the hope of a true transformation in a person’s life. Like Manasseh, it is an extreme transformation. Paul is terrorizing the Christians in Jerusalem.
All of the Christians during this time are also Jews and we know that Paul is also Jewish, so Paul is killing Christians but they are in actuality his own people - they are Jews just like Paul. Paul is creating havoc for this growing community of people living for Christ. And Paul can’t understand when he arrests them or as they are dying, they are filled with this peace. Why he hears things like “Forgive them” and “I’m coming to you Jesus”. They should be cowering in fear yet they look to heaven with a serenity that makes no sense to Paul. The Christians begin to leave Jerusalem for safer territories and Paul decides that he’s just going to go after them and arrest them in the places they are moving to. He hears there is a batch of these new converts in Damascus and so off he heads to ‘get him some more Christians’! But on that trip there comes a great windstorm which kicks up the dust and the dust is swirling about and no one can see anything. Paul is blinded by the sand and falls to his knees where he hears a voice, “Paul, why are you persecuting me?” And Paul sees Jesus - the real risen Jesus standing with him. Paul realizes that something remarkable is happening to him. Jesus tells him to go to Damascus and he will get instructions. But Paul is now blind and the people with him lead him down the road to Damascus where he is led into a room and since he is blind he can’t do much else but sit and think. For three days Pal contemplates what has happened to him - think of the three days Jonah was in the belly of the whale considering what God had asked him to do. Paul has the same amount of time to think about all that he has seen and heard.
Then comes a man named Ananias whom God told to testify to the the blind Paul - and he does. Paul begins to hear the gospel message, and the scales fall from his eyes and through this series of events, God transforms Paul into not only a believer in Christ, but the man who is going to take the good news of salvation to the Gentiles - where he will become the true founder of the Church of Jesus Christ. From Christian hater to and evangelist for Jesus.
Remarkable transformations. It puts a smile on our face to see this great work God can do. But what does it really have to do with me? I have not desecrated the temple nor led people away from God (at least I hope not!) I haven’t persecuted Christians. I know I’m a sinner and I know I’d like to be a better follower of God but I don’t think I need a Damascus Road experience. I just need to be better - not transformed so much... That peace and joy and love and serenity sounds pretty good but I don’t know if that is possible - I have to deal with whatever……fill in the blank for your own life.
Transformation for us in the church; those struggling with our faith; those who desire to grow more like God wants us to be; those who would really like to have that inner peace is a process - a painstakingly slow process. Sometimes a really painful process. Yet it is a very real process that God will do for us - but (there’s always a but....) we have to let him. We have to at some moment - and it may be a Damascus Road type thing where we are in the middle of a sandstorm of sorts - just stop and say, “OK God. I give in. You take care of
me.” And we have to mean it and we have to then let go of all those things we hold tightly to....... and the transformation will begin. And will come an inner peace and joy and love and serenity that we cannot explain.
And so each of us needs to take time. Maybe not the 3 days it took Paul laying in blindness or the three days it took Jonah in a belly of a whale, but we need to set aside some time to let God do his work. God cannot help you become who he knows you can be if we are thinking about a thousand other things in our lives.
Blindness was good for Paul because he really couldn’t think about much else. The belly of the whale was good for Jonah because he really didn’t have anything else to do but think about God and what God was calling him to do.
It is harder for us because we hand’t been struck blind or swallowed by a whale. We have to actually make time to sit and contemplate and consider and be quiet - so that God can work on us and mold us and transform us. It is not a wave of a magic wand. It is God and you. Just God and you. Without any distractions around you. But you will be amazed what God can do if you take the time to spend with him - just the two of you.
Take that time to consider all this. To consider if you really want that love, peace, joy and serenity. But it means risking what God will do with your life. Ask yourself: Can I really live without worrying and wanting to be in control? Change in myself is extremely frightening.
That is what God wants us to understand. The world around us is always going to be filled with evil and chaos and problems and stress but we can live in peace if we just allow God’s transformation to come over us. And it will be just as remarkable as the transformation of Manasseh and Jonah and of Paul.
Amen!