“Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying...”
– Acts 9:11

    What do you think was Jesus’ greatest miracle?  Feeding the 5,000?  Stilling the storm?  Healing a man born blind?
    No doubt, those are pretty impressive.  I think one of the most awe-inspiring of Jesus’ miracles is one that doesn’t usually make it onto the list of his miracles at all.  It’s the conversion of one Saul of Tarsus.
    Make no mistake, Jesus is responsible for that one, too.  He isn’t there, on the Road to Damascus, in a physical sense, but when Saul sees that blinding light and falls to the ground, it’s the voice of Jesus that addresses him: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  And then: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”
    Sure enough – that’s Jesus, all right!
    So convinced is Saul – later known as Paul – that it was Jesus himself who broke down his resistance, who saved his soul – he has this to say.  After listing a whole catalogue of believers to whom the risen Christ appeared in the flesh, he appends this footnote:

    “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”     [1 Corinthians 15:8-10]

    “Jesus?” Paul asks.  “Jesus?  You want to know if I ever met him?  Not in the usual way of meeting a person.  Not with a clasp of the hand or a touch on the shoulder.  But make no mistake: I did meet him.  Or, to put it a little better, he met me.”
    Before Paul had become the distinguished theologian, or the globe-trotting evangelist, he was just a poor, broken-down excuse for a man.  He hadn’t always been that way.  Just a few days before, he’d been heading from Jerusalem to Damascus, search-and-seizure warrants in hand, all set to arrest him some Christians.  That was the sort of thing Saul used to live for: the thrill of the chase, the growing exhaustion of the prey – and, finally, the dead look in his quarry’s eyes, when the poor, unfortunate victims knew they had nowhere left to run.  Some people did that sort of work with a sad resignation, an awareness that this was a dirty job someone had to do.  But, not Saul.  He was the sort of guy who would shake his head in disbelief, saying, “I can’t believe they pay me to do this.” He was obsessed, was Saul.
    It was Jesus who put an end to that – and there’s the miracle!
    I’m going to read you some very old-fashioned words now, the ornate prose of the English evangelical preacher of the Victorian era, Charles Haddon Spurgeon – for they capture the wonder of this miraculous transformation:

    “Oh, how marvelous was the power of God! Jesus stays this man in his mad career; just as with his lance in rest he was dashing against Christ. Christ met him, unhorsed him, threw him on the ground, and questioned him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" He then graciously removed his rebellious heart – gave him a new heart and a right spirit – turned his aim and object – led him to Damascus – laid him prostrate for three days and nights – spoke to him – made mystic sounds go murmuring through his ears – set his whole soul on fire; and when at last he started up from that three days’ trance, and began to pray, then it was that Jesus from heaven descended, came in a vision to Ananias, and said, “Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus; for, behold, he prayeth.” [“Paul’s First Prayer,” Sermon delivered on March 25th, 1855, New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, England.]

    We’ll never know what went through the mind of Saul, as he lay there in the throes of spiritual transformation, tossing and turning on his bed, despairing that he would ever see again.  But we do know what went through the mind of a certain disciple by the name of Ananias, to whom Jesus appeared in a vision, saying, “I’ve got a job for you.  I want you to go visit a man from Tarsus by the name of Saul and tell him all about me.”
    “I want to make sure I heard you right, Lord,” says Ananias right back.  “Was that Saul of Tarsus, or Saul of Parnassus?  ‘Cause if it was Parnassus, I’m right on it.”
    “No, Ananias, I said Tarsus – T-A-R-S-U-S.”
     “You can’t mean Saul of Tarsus, Lord.  He’s a really bad man.  I mean, a really bad man.  As in, you-don’t-want-to-meet-him-in-a-dark-alley kind of bad.”
    “Saul of Tarsus, Ananias.  Right here in Damascus.  In a house on Straight Street.  I’ve told him you’re on your way.  He’s waiting for you.”
    “Waiting... for me?”
    “Yes, Ananias.  Oh, and one more thing – he’s praying.”
    The Bible doesn’t tell us so, but I suspect it was that little phrase that made all the difference for Ananias: “He’s praying.”
    It’s not that Saul of Tarsus had never prayed before.  He was a Pharisee, for crying out loud – one of the expert practitioners of public, Temple prayers.  Twice a day whenever he was in Jerusalem, morning and evening, Saul would ascend the Temple Mount.  Entering the public Court of the Gentiles, he would then climb the further steps to the Temple proper.  From there he would wrap his prayer shawl around his shoulders, tie on his phylacteries and step into the mysterious darkness where only faithful, observant Jews were allowed to stand.  It was there that Saul would offer his prayers.  All Jerusalem would marvel at his eloquence.
    Clearly, this prayer is different.  It has about it no practiced cadences, no elegant diction.   It’s a cry of agony, straight from the heart.
    Somehow, Ananias realizes this.  This – plus the assurance he’s received that this is God’s will, come what may – is what allows him to conquer his fears, and voluntarily go where no other Christian has gone before him (at least, not voluntarily).
    Ananias finds Saul not only humbled, but penitent.  That voice he’d heard on the road belonged to the heretic rabbi from Nazareth – the one Pilate had crucified, the one his clueless followers claimed had come back from the dead.  Saul had never believed such tales – until now.  And now, the very thought they could be true sent a chill straight through his heart.
    Saul had become, in the truest sense of the word, a praying man.      
    Well, what difference does it make?  During a season such as Lent, you and I are meant to spend at least a little more time in prayer than we typically do.  Does it change anything, really?  When a call goes out to pray for someone who’s sick, does it make any kind of difference?  Do our communities get a little more healthier, during these week when so many more sick people are being prayed for?  Do the casualty counts in America and Afghanistan take an unexplained drop?  For that matter, on a school day when the possibility of snow is forecast, is school that much more likely to be canceled – with all those heartfelt petitions going up, with all those paris of pajamas being worn inside-out?  Or are such prayers little more than random bursts of flying beach sand, carried along by a persistent offshore wind?
    A wise old believer once said, when asked if she thought prayer changed anything, “I don’t know if prayer changes much about the things I pray for.  But, I am certain of one thing: prayer changes me!”
    And that’s the heart of it, my friends.  Prayer is transformative.  Prayer changes us.
    In a sermon years ago, I told a story I’d like to retell for you now.  It’s a true story, that took place in Lincoln, Nebraska.
    The main character in the story is a man named Larry Trapp, a sad, broken-down shell of a human being, who, all the same, managed to transform himself into a scary individual.
    Larry was both blind and  confined to a wheelchair, due to juvenile diabetes.  As he grew into adulthood, he fell under the sway of some extremists who preached hate over the radio.  Larry joined the American Nazi Party.   Next, it was the Ku Klux Klan.  From his wheelchair, Larry singlehandedly reorganized the Klan in Nebraska, becoming its Grand Dragon.  Larry Trapp lived for one thing, and one thing only: harassing racial and religious minorities.
    One of Larry’s victims was a Jew by the name of Michael Weisser, who served as cantor in a local synagogue.  Larry regularly sent the cantor and his family threatening letters, inserting into each one a business card that read “The KKK is watching you.”  He made anonymous phone calls to their home, spewing messages of hatred until whoever answered the call had hung up. Little by little, a dark pall of fear descended upon the Weisser household.  They began locking their doors at all times: something they’d never done before.  They thought bout getting a home security system.
    One day, out of the blue – he wasn’t sure why – Cantor Weisser felt moved to call Larry Trapp, and offer him a ride to the grocery store.  He got nowhere with that call, but In the weeks to come, he followed up with other calls and offers of assistance.  When Larry was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace, Weisser and his congregation prayed for him by name.
    The next evening, Larry called the cantor and did something no one ever expected: he asked for help.  The Weissers brought dinner over to his apartment.  While they were there, Larry burst into tears.  He pulled off his swastika rings and said, “These rings are the symbols of hatred and evil, and I don't want them in my life anymore.”
    Larry resigned as Grand Dragon of the Klan.  He publicly apologized for his racist invective.  Three months later, he even showed up at a synagogue service on Martin Luther King Day, and spoke favorably of the civil rights leader’s memory.
    Even more incredibly, Larry Trapp eventually converted to Judaism and joined Rabbi Weisser’s congregation.  As his illness became worse, he moved into the rabbi’d home, where his he family cared for him.
    Larry died that same year, in the home of the cantor.  During his memorial service in the synagogue, it is said that Cantor Michael Weisser sat quietly off to one side, weeping.
    Such is the power of prayer.  Even more to the point, such is the power of God’s love.  That love has power to penetrate and heal even the hardest soul.  It did so for Larry Trapp.  It did so for Saul of Tarsus.  It can do so for you and me as well – acting even on those dark and secret corners of our souls, the places even we ourselves are reluctant to visit: let alone allow the Spirit of the Lord to enter in.
    Dare, this Lent, to become a praying man, a praying woman.  Dare to trust the Holy Spirit to bring about real change in your life, and in the lives of those you love.   Dare to believe that, as we break bread together and share one cup, the prayers we share will somehow, by sheer grace, make the sacrament more real to us than we can possibly imagine!

Copyright (c) by Carlos E. Wilton.  All rights reserved.