Syria, and its capital Damascus, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. This once thriving city is being destroyed by warring factions who seem to care little for the lives and livelihoods of anyone. Christians have been particularly at risk in the cultural/political convulsions of that sad country.
Tomorrow’s epistle reading takes us back in time to a different Damascus. Saul – the future St Paul – is on the warpath: “Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way (Christians) men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”
Things didn’t go according to plan because Saul had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus when he was struck to the ground and challenged about what he was intending to do. He answered back: “‘Who are you, Lord?” The reply came: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Outsider
Saul, the outsider from a Christian point of view, represents those who do not know Jesus or what he stands for. To him Jesus and his followers are a threat and must be silenced or in today’s world ignored. It is worth noting that several times in the gospel narrative Jesus attributes the actions of his enemies to ignorance, most notably from the cross: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
When we hear reports of horrific crimes against Christians and indeed other faith groups we must understand that ignorance is the source of the hatred. A friend drew attention to the bidding words of the Christmas Service of Nine Lessons and Carols where we pray for “all those who know not the Lord Jesus or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love”. Those words describe perfectly those responsible for the Easter atrocity at All Saints’ Anglican church in Peshawar in Pakistan where 85 people including many children were murdered by Taliban suicide bombers.
The gospel reading suggests that the ability to recognise Jesus resides among people of faith, those who know Jesus and value what he stands for. It describes him on a beach talking to disciples who at first do not recognise him. Then we are told “that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’’ Jesus is not only recognised but is welcomed and takes part in their everyday lives, fishing and sharing a meal. It has been suggested that this recognition of Jesus ever present in our ordinary everyday lives is possibly the correct understanding of the Second Coming of Christ.
Some people are dismissive of Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus but in his book What I Believe Leo Tolstoy said this about his own conversion:
“I came to believe in Christ’s teaching and my life suddenly changed. It happened to me as it happens to a man who goes out on some business and on the way suddenly decides that the business is unnecessary and returns home. All that was on his right is now on his left and all that was on his left is now on his right . . . I was exactly like the thief (on the cross) but the difference was that the thief was already dying while I was still living. The thief might believe that his salvation lay beyond the grave but I could not be satisfied with that, because besides a life beyond the grave, life still awaited me here. But I did not understand that life. It seemed to me terrible. And suddenly I heard the words of Christ and understood them, and life and death ceased to seem to me evil, and instead of despair I experienced happiness and the joy of life undisturbed by death.”
Tolstoy reminds us that the Easter faith is not just for the future; it is for living today.