Saul's Nativity

"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons." Galatians 4:4-5

Judah, Dearest of Friends. Peace to you and your household from God.

I received your letter via the packet which arrived from Jerusalem yesterday. Regarding the letters of authorization I had received from the chief priests to arrest those members of the Way, I have not, and I have found that I will not be able to execute.

You know, Jude, how long I have pursued a godly life: always scrupulous about the Law, always careful to do things right, ready at all times to defend or make a case for a rigorous obedience to the Law. However, I now find myself quite undone. What is a lawyer to do? -- To have spent so much energy in vigilance that I have become guilty? -- To have pursued so tenaciously an understanding of the right way to live according the Law, and to have found that I have failed at every point? “Failure” – that is a word of which I have long been oppressed. “Guilty” – the avoidance of that word has motivated more activity in my life – if ‘life’ is what you would call it. You remember, how earnest I was? How eager to impress? How ready to boast? How desirous of other’s good opinion? Well, I’ve lost it all – both other’s good opinions and the hope of ever having them in the future. What a blind fool I have been.

These have been interesting times. One could describe them as almost pregnant. Have you felt it, too? For as long as I can remember, it has seemed that we were on the verge of something extraordinary. You know how it’s been. Ever since Pilate took over the Proconsulate, the Zealots are constantly popping off about another Judas Macabee who will rise up to lead our people to throw off the yoke of our Roman oppressors and the Sadducee priests thinking a great high priest is coming who will intercede and mediate a peace which would mollify the lust of our pagan rulers. Even those dessert Essenes look to a coming Shepherd-King, like David, who would lead the fight against darkness. Everyone has been looking for the Messiah. My friend, our own Pharisee brothers have been no better. Thinking that by enforcing a right observance of the Law, we could set the stage for the one of whom Moses spoke – one like him who would be both leader, intercessor, and law-giver. Instead, we constantly fight about the details of the Law, and there is no end to it – there is never any safety, any peace, any rest.

All my life, I have believed that the requirements God made of us through Moses were the way we secured our standing before God. I have always believed that knowing the right way and living the right way would make me, well, right. How could it be any other way? Why, would one give laws, knowing that those to whom you gave them were unable to keep them? I had thought that by keeping myself clean, I would secure God’s favor – that the frown I apprehended would turn to a smile and that His smile would fall upon me. I found, though, that the harder I tried to obey, the more living under that smile eluded me. I have lived my life, my dear Jude, as if I could win God’s favor. I had desired his good favor above all things. I had thought that he must surely bless me if I could but catch his eye, by my perfection, my zeal, my efforts. You will, no doubt, say, “Saul, you always were a taskmaster even on yourself.” But it is all true. You know how I was teased in school because of my shortness. It’s not hard to see that my efforts and zeal in making a name for myself have been an attempt to compensate for that which I lack – a stature. Though I could not make myself tall, I felt I could rise in other’s estimation. But I have become my worst fear: small, petty, insignificant, a snipping fool of a man -- a man consumed with zeal for the smallest of things: his own reputation in the eyes of others. I have resented other’s joy, comfort and pleasure, and though I have not lied or worshipped an idol or dishonored my parents or murdered or stolen – I have, in my heart, coveted -- even you, Jude. I have been jealous of you – your wife and children and family and place among the elders. I am so ashamed, my brother of what has long poisoned my heart. On the outside I am a loyal friend and a respectable lawyer, but on the inside, I burn with wanting other’s things and an anger at God for requiring of me ‘rightness’ and all the while withholding it from me because I am at heart, a blasphemer and a violent man. I, who have studied the Law and who longed to love it as King David, have secretly hated it and God, who required it. Yes, Jude, I see these things now, but until late, I have been blind. This expectation, and this waiting, this pregnancy of time though, thanks be to God, has led to my delivery. You see up until a few days ago, I really could not see at all.

You are aware as to my reasons for being in Damascus. I came with letters from the chief priests authorizing me to bring back those members of the synagogue who were stirring up dissension with this talk about Joshua – Jesus as the Greeks call him. This was to be a crowning achievement. All those who questioned my zeal by not participating in Stephen’s stoning, would be silenced. All who thought me “small” would take note. Had they given so much as to leave the comfort of the great city to travel Arabia in pursuit of these agitators? But alas, that which was to be my zenith has become a defeat. Here is what happened.

I was nearing Damascus, at about noon when I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

Then I asked, “Who are you, Lord?”

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” the Lord replied. “Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of the Accuser to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are made holy by faith in me.”

“Saul, Saul,” he said. The entreaty of a kind and loving friend – I who was his enemy -- his voice full of compassion and authority -- this one whom we saw preaching in the Temple and condemned by Pilate – this Jesus of Nazareth has appeared to me and appointed me to be his servant and witness. I stood up as he commanded, but though the radiance of He who is the Light was gone, I was covered in darkness. I could no longer see anything.

All my life I consoled myself with the thought that I could see. I could read the letters of the texts of our Scriptures; I could see the straight line of the uniform stitch in the tents I was making; I could thread my own needle. And not only that, but I had an inner sight -- a sight of the heart. I flattered myself in school with my insight and command of the Scriptures. I feasted on the praise of my teacher, Gameliel. I regularly engaged our friend Nicodemus on the finer points of the Nazarene’s errors, and I saw clearly, or so I thought, the ridiculous claims of those unschooled Galileans.

“Why do you kick against the goads?” he asked. The question still pierces me. Is that what I have been doing these twenty years? Spitefully beating myself up to satisfy my guilty conscience or somehow punish God for making me? All my life, the exhausting pursuit of the right has left me angry, resentful, afraid, and petty. The right I was pursuing I really hated. Like a stubborn child who refuses to wear his sandals outside, but instead walks through nettles or kicks a thorn bush, and complains that it hurts, were all my endeavors for God. I didn’t obey because I loved him. I obeyed to spite him. I obeyed because I thought I could move Him into activity on my behalf. And he is sending me to the Gentiles to open their eyes? Me? I have spent my life pursuing knowledge of the Scriptures so that when my time came, I would be ready to take my place as an elder of Israel – and he is sending me to the Gentiles? All my life I have kept myself ceremonially clean – even as a Jew in the Diaspora, living among the Greeks in Tarsus. And he is sending me to those dogs? “To open their eyes,” he said, and I who was now blind?

Why is it that when you think you see, you can be sure you are blind, but when you think yourself blind, you are really beginning to see? That is how it has been for me. Down, down, down, he has taken me – in estimation but also in self-sufficiency. My blindness was now more than metaphorical; I really was blinded on that road. And though I could recount what was spoken, and what I saw, my companions saw none of it, save for the light and the thundering noise. I who was their leader, now helpless, was led by the hand step by step into Damascus. This was my grand entrance; my humiliation was complete. I, who had come for my victory, was de-feated, cast down into the dust, a blind apostle to a blind people.

The Scriptures tell us that our father, Abraham, “believed God and it was credited to him as rightness.” I’ve lived as if that rightness came by my effort. But rightness doesn’t come by obeying the Law, obeying the Law is the overflow of our rightness. All along I had thought my rightness was that I was Abraham’s seed, but there is no rightness in ethnicity, nationality, or gender. Abraham was right because he believed – before the Law came, before the covenant sign of circumcision was given. The Law doesn’t make one right it only points out where one is wrong. I’ve believed that as Abraham’s seed, I participated in his rightness by being a faithful son of Abraham. Rather, I am Abraham’s son when I, like Abraham, believe the promise of God – that He will bless not only Abraham’s heirs, but the nations.

You know how I have lived in fear that I would not measure up: as a Jew, as a Pharisee, as a teacher. I have lived under the condemnation of that smallness – afraid that I would go unnoticed. “Saul, Saul” he said, “Why do you persecute me? Is it hard for you...?” On the road here, I was noticed. The shame of exposure, of failing, of being wrong, of being turned out, of being cursed, of the hardness – the Nazarene bore it all for me – I who was substituting “the Law” for God, “the blessing” for a Heavenly Father, “achievement” for a free gift. He substituted himself, lived a perfect life, bore the shame for all my smallness and himself secured a smile for me. I now am beginning to live under that smile, Judah. You see, Jesus noticed me, he loved me, he bore it for me, he has come, even to me.

Tell our friend Nicodemus that I understand now, “that he came not to condemn the world but to save it” and that I stand with him.

To you, my dear Jude, I, who though recently blind is beginning to see, who recently commissioned to imprison is himself now, captured – and just in time, am your faithful friend.

Saul of Tarsus