This sermon series will investigate some persons of interest in the death of Jesus Christ. Each sermon will ask if this person is guilty of the death of Jesus Christ. As we listen and hear the case against each player in the death of Christ, we also hear that the words are for us today. May the Lord bless us as we hear His Word.
This sermon, preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on March 19, 2014 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, focuses on Acts 7:54-8:3. The sermon recording may also be accessed by clicking the title of this blog post and playing it in your browser.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this evening is from the Acts of the Apostles, the 7th and 8th chapters:
Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at [Philip]. …[And] they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. …And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Tonight, our investigation, our person of interest, is turned to Paul. We need to look at Paul to see how exactly it is that he is involved in the death of Jesus the Christ. Paul is a little more responsible it seems than anyone we’ve looked at so far, for Paul was known at the time of the death of Jesus as Saul.
Saul of Tarsus, a person of interest in the death of Jesus, was a Pharisee. This means a few things: Saul was incredibly educated in the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, Saul was highly respected among other Israelites for he was able to read to them God’s Holy Word, and Saul served with the Pharisees in Jerusalem, the same group that conspired to have Jesus put to death. In Jerusalem, Saul was educated by, to this day, one of the most important rabbis who ever lived, Gamaliel, and so Saul should have displayed more patience and understanding about this Jesus whom he had crucified, and yet, Saul’s own sin caused a blindness in his eyes towards the fact that Jesus is the Messiah.
And so Saul may have been there the night that Judas approached the group asking for money to betray Jesus. Saul may have been present during the trial of Jesus. Saul may have cried out for Jesus’ blood when Pilate gave the Jews a choice between Jesus and Barabbas. Saul may have watched as the Christ died upon the cross. Saul may have tried even to cover up the missing body of Jesus.
Saul is an interesting phenomenon for us. I’d like to say that we can really get a handle on everything that’s there in the Scriptures that tell us about Saul, but I think we’ll have to fill in some of the gaps.
Saul gets interesting because of what he does through his life. You see, I mentioned he was taught by an important rabbi, but this rabbi encouraged tolerance towards Christians, as we see in Acts 5, where the Pharisees were debating whether they needed to kill Jesus’ Apostles. Gamaliel, Saul’s teacher, said this: “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from [the Apostles] and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” This was, of course, wise advice.
What’s interesting is that Saul didn’t follow it. Saul’s teacher encouraged tolerance; Saul committed murder. Saul’s Scriptures pointed to the Christ; Saul murdered His followers. Saul is an interesting contradiction, for Saul was a persecutor of the Church. In today’s eyewitness report we have the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and where do we see Saul? Holding the coats, smiling in approval as they buried Stephen with heavier and heavier stones until he died. Yes, the Scriptures do indeed say that heresy, which Saul thought Christianity was, should be punished in this way. But Saul seems to get some enjoyment out of his new role as the Gestapo at this time.
Saul would go into people’s homes and drag them out, crying and screaming. He would kill anyone he found of the Church, though, if they were lucky, they were simply put in prison. The Church was ravaged and there didn’t seem to be any relief.
But, this all doesn’t have much to do with the death of Jesus, does it? Well, that’s not what Jesus tells us from His own lips. One day, while Saul was making his way to Damascus in order that the persecution he began in Jerusalem would continue all over the world, a light shone from heaven, and Saul fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, “Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Saul asked who was speaking, and the voice said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Now, this is interesting. For Jesus, speaking from heaven, equates the persecution of many in the Church as a persecution of Himself. And so Saul, even in his persecution of the Church, was actually persecuting Jesus Himself, even trying to continue to put Him to death, a death that was accomplished well before this road to Damascus.
Saul is definitely guilty then of the death of Jesus. It’s pretty clear. I think we’ve made a convincing case, and if nothing else, Saul has guilt by association.
But that’s not the end of the story. Not by a long shot. Jesus wasn’t done with Saul, and just as Jesus restored Peter into the ministry, so Jesus has a plan to convert Saul. So, just as Saul’s own blindness towards Christ caused Jesus to be crucified, so, too, then does Jesus cause Saul’s eyes to literally become blind, to cause scales to grow over them and he was not able to see.
Saul was no longer able to read the Scriptures and blind himself to the Christ. Instead, by not being able to see, all Saul was able to do was receive the Word of Christ preached to him, and when the Word is preached, there is no stopping the Holy Spirit. For when Saul heard even the words of Ananias, the words of Christ, that Saul is a chosen instrument of Christ to share the Word of God with the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, the scales, his blindness, fell away from his eyes and Saul was baptized into Christ’s name, the name of God, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Around this time, Saul, who had been born in a Roman town as a Roman citizen, left behind the name of Saul, a good Jewish name, and began to be called by Paul, a name he had since he was a young man, and a name more familiar to the Gentiles. Paul became a man whom the Lord had chosen to carry out the name of Jesus into every corner of the world. Paul became for Christ a man who no longer ravaged the Church, but preached it, carried it out into the world, taught it, loved it, nurtured it. Paul had the first-ever Damascus Road conversion, and because of Christ, it changed everything.
But just because Paul did many good things, it does not negate the reality of what he had done to the Christ. For indeed, Paul seemed to be able to have had a hand in the actual death of Christ, but more than that, Paul was a great sinner. A murderer, a torturer, a man who reveled in the death and agony of others. We today would call such men sociopaths. Paul was a sinner, a great sinner, the chief of sinners. In the death of Jesus, he is guilty. And so are we.
I’m not saying that we necessarily delight in the death and agony of others, though perhaps we do. But, Paul is a murderer, and so am I, for Jesus Christ has told me that even should I hate my brother, I am guilty of his blood, I am guilty of murdering him. So, I’m no better than Paul. I’m worse, even. And so are you, so are we all.
And yet, like Paul, we hear the Word of God and we are baptized. We have been given the name of God upon our foreheads and upon our hearts to mark us as ones redeemed by Christ the Crucified. And so we are. We are redeemed, bought back from the slavery to sin, bought back out of the maw of hell. We are restored, redeemed, renamed, just as Paul.
So, Paul’s verdict in the death of Christ? Guilty. Just as we are. But the sentence for all of us, Paul included, was even given to Jesus. Even as Paul had Jesus crucified, Jesus bore that sin away for Paul, and He has borne it away for you. For Paul heard the Word of God even as Paul saw the Word of God dying upon the cross. And both were real, and both brought Paul to faith in Christ, the same Christ he crucified, and the same Christ that rose from the grave to bring the world to faith and promise to them everlasting life. So, Paul’s sentence for his guilt: given completely to Jesus. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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