Conversion of St. Paul

A Homily on the Third Sunday After Epiphany

The Rev. Deacon Timothy Wilson

If you are a classical history buff, someone who enjoys reading historical works, as I am, you will surely have read of moments when a single encounter altered the course of an empire. Plutarch tells us that when Alexander the Great first encountered the philosopher Diogenes, the conqueror of nations was brought to a halt. He was not halted by an army, but in fact, by a word. Yet even such moments pale beside the event we commemorate today. You see, on the road to Damascus, it was not a philosopher who stopped Saul of Tarsus, but the risen Christ Himself. This was not a king addressing his subject, but the Lord of glory confronting His enemy. History did not merely make a turn that day; it was redeemed.

The Church doesn’t call this feast something like The Moral Reformation of St. Paul, or The New Insight or Epiphany of St. Paul, but The Conversion of St. Paul. Why? Because it is the story of a man turned entirely around because he met Jesus Christ alive.

Notice what we pray this week in the Collect. We thank God not first for Paul’s intellect, courage, or his labors, but for his conversion. The light of the Gospel shines through the world only because Christ first shone into Paul’s darkness. The Church’s mission flows from Christ’s sovereign grace. This is entirely consistent with the understanding that salvation and mission alike originate with God.

The Epistle we read from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 9:1–22), presents Saul not as indifferent or immoral, but as zealously religious. “Breathing out threatenings and slaughter,” he believes he is serving the God of Abraham. He was completely convinced of his righteousness. This is tragic sincerity, but I like how St. Augustine famously put it,

“Saul was not seeking Christ, but Christ was seeking Saul.” (Sermon 279)

So, here’s the scandal of the event. Saul’s greatest problem was not lack of zeal, but lack of Christ. And his zeal without Christ becomes persecution of Christ, for the Lord Himself declares, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

This single question unearths a profound Christological truth, which is that the risen and ascended Jesus so identifies Himself with His Church that to strike the members is to strike the Head. 

St. Chrysostom writes,

“He did not say, Why persecutest thou my servants? but, Why persecutest thou me? showing the closeness of the union between Him and the faithful.” (Homilies on Acts, Homily 20)

St. Matthew’s account, in our Gospel reading (St. Matthew 19:27–30), may at first seem somewhat distant from Damascus, but I think it interprets it perfectly. Peter asks what awaits those who have left all to follow Christ, and our Lord answers with promises of both suffering and glory. Why does He put it that way? Because our loss will be transformed into an inheritance.

Paul most definitely lived this Gospel. He left all, his reputation, safety, and even his status. But you see, he receives all. He receives Christ Himself. Then, the voice from heaven does not merely inform Saul; it commands him. “Arise, and go into the city.” I articulate it this way, because, and please hear me clearly this morning…

Conversion is never merely illumination; we are given that, yes, but it is obedience to the living Lord.

So, how does Saul respond? Blinded, helpless, fasting for three days, Saul undergoes a death before resurrection. And astutely, St. Gregory the Great interprets this blindness sacramentally; he writes,

“He lost the sight of the flesh, that he might gain the vision of the heart.” (Homilies on the Gospels, 29)

The crucial matter, that I find interesting, is that Christ does not restore Saul’s sight directly. He sends Ananias. Look closely at this… the Grace that confronts him personally is completed by grace mediated ecclesially. In other words, hands are laid upon Saul; he’s baptized; then what? …he eats; and he is strengthened. Isn’t that beautiful and loving?! The very Christ who spoke from heaven now incorporates Saul into His Body on earth.

This is why St. Paul’s theology will be so deeply sacramental. He who learned Christ first as persecuted Head will proclaim Christ as given Body. Then, later, he will write in 1 Cor. 10:16,

“The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”

I have always loved how St. Augustine draws this connection,

“If you receive worthily, you are what you receive.”

Paul’s entire life becomes an outworking of this union with Christ. Participation in the crucified, risen Christ who is present with His people.

So, if you have followed me up to this point, you understand that the Conversion of St. Paul finds its true completion at the Holy Table with the same Jesus.  Beloved, we do not gaze backward only, but receive presently the benefits of Christ’s one oblation once offered.

We, the Church, confess a real and heavenly participation in Christ. Listen to these powerful words of what St. Chrysostom vividly reminds us:

“When you see the Lord sacrificed, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim… can you think you are still among men?” (Homily on the Priesthood, 3.4)

My friends, as we have just seen, persecutors become apostles, sinners become saints, and the blind are made to see. How? Not by a blinding light, but by bread broken and wine poured out.

Beloved, let us remember Paul’s conversion not as an account of some distant history, so much as a living call. The risen Christ still confronts, He still converts, still incorporates, and still feeds His people. And as we come to this Altar, like Paul, let us proclaim, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

Amen. +