When Joe Campos left for work on Long Island during heavy rains Monday a week ago, he never imagined he would return home entirely changed.
Joe worked for Ramon Stone Construction Company. He had just lifted a heavy metal chain when he saw lightning hit the ground about 20 feet in front of him. It took less than a second to travel from there to him, knocking him to the ground.
Joe described the experience as numbing his entire body at first, so that he couldn’t move. Eventually, he got up, went inside, and called 911.
James Church from Poince Inlet, FLA had a similar experience. Not everyone survives a lightning strike. In fact, very few survive. James knew, he was one of the “lucky ones.” As a result of being thrown to the ground, he described a change that was not just one in his body: “I pay more attention to life more now,” he said.
When lightning strikes a human body, it short-circuits your brain. What does that mean? The electrical charge of the bolt lowers your inner resistance so that the more powerful current can travel with no electrical impediment throughout your body. It essentially changes the entire make-up of your bodily systems. The electrical current “disrupts” the flow of your normal functions, including that of your brain, and sometimes your heart, and it leaves your body forever changed.
You cannot be hit by lightning without being changed. Even if you survive the strike, you will see eventual change in some way or another. It may be organ malfunctions or arrhythmias, or internal scarring, or brain abnormalities. You cannot be hit by the force of that kind of current without incurring significant alteration.
That’s pretty much the case with the Holy Spirit too. Think about Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Saul is going along in the same mindset he’s had for a while. He’s been practicing a passionate mission to round up Christians worshipping Jesus, and he’s been throwing them in jail at best, killing them at worst. Now, he’s headed for Damascus, where he’s heard there is a significant gathering of Christians. He has a posse with him. He means to take back to Jerusalem all of the Jesus followers he can –as many as he can find.
With no warning whatsoever, brilliant, flashing, blinding light flashes around Saul. Instantly, he is thrown off of his horse and onto the ground, stunned and blinded. Just as he’s saying, “what the….”, the voice of Jesus resounds: “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul in his confusion, asks, “Who are you!?” to which the voice responds, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!”
In darkness, Saul is directed to go into the city and to wait.
Saul remains blinded for three days! Where have we heard “3 days” before? Hmm..
Wow! What an experience! But that’s not the punch of the story!
The real punch is that when Saul’s sight returns, he’s not the same man! Not even close! So much so, that no one knows what the heck happened to him! The Christians are afraid of him. The apostles are too when he’s brought later back to Jerusalem.
And when Paul begins preaching, he never shuts up again! It’s Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Why?
God explains why to Ananias, who will lay hands upon Saul, healing his darkness and commissioning him for new (in)sight and new ministry in the Name of Jesus: “This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Boom! Drop the mic!
Saul’s vicious anger, his killing frenzy, his willful ignorance about Jesus has been short-circuited by the powerful strike of the Holy Spirit. Paul will never be the same person again. He has been inexplicably and undeniably changed. His mission to the gentiles will be both his drive and his penance, his joy and his thorn. Jesus has given him a life-altering charge, “a charge to keep, a God to glorify.”
Paul will go on to become the greatest evangelist of the early church. Saul is gone. Paul is born. But it wasn’t an easy birthing. Saul’s ego and his agenda had to be disrupted before he could be healed and refocused.
Think of it as God’s “laser therapy” for the eyes of the soul.
Anyone here undergo laser therapy on your eyes? Then you know what happens first-hand: the laser literally burns and disrupts the part of the eye that is not functioning properly. It takes sometimes a bit of time and cloudiness before new, clear vision is restored. This is because the burn first needs to heal. As healing happens, new sight emerges.
When we are struck by the power of God in our innermost hearts, the “current” flow of our lives will be altered. A new identity will emerge. Our ways of seeing things will be changed. Our way of seeing other people will be changed. The way we see Jesus will be changed. I like to call it God’s “creative disruption.” “God’s act of creative repentance.” God’s creative power comes upon us in the form of the Holy Spirit and literally strikes us in the head and heart, short-circuiting our flawed thinking, our faulty logic, our wrong direction, and our wayward wandering. It is God’s great “disruptive act of mercy.”
Out of that creative disruption comes a new and fresh direction, a stunning realization of the Truth of the gospel, and a new awareness of faith and the presence of Jesus in our lives. And with that comes a new direction for life and a new sense of mission. In that one act, God forgives us of our past, stuns us into right thinking and righteous living, and propels us forward into mission in Jesus’ Name.
It’s a form of what the scriptures like to call in agricultural lingo, “pruning.” Pruning is to a tree what a lightning strike is to Saul!
When you prune a tree, you are cutting off its limbs. You are cutting back its way of growing and forming. You are giving it a jolt, a shock. A new direction. You are essentially rewiring it to grow differently and more fruitfully. You cut it down and back, so it can continue to grow up and outward. Pruning is a form of “creative disruption.” Without it, that tree will just keep going in a non-fruitful way.
Restoration only happens after one current is disrupted by a more dominant current. The old must die, so that the renewed can live! For us to see God and the role God wills for our lives, we must first be made aware of God’s disruptive presence, which shocks us out of our complacent and compliant lives and into a place of extraordinary insight, growth, and mission.
We all need a little disruption. We all need to be knocked off our “high horses” and grounded for a while --sometimes to see what Jesus needs us to see about ourselves, and our churches, and our mission in the world. For we never realize what we don’t see, until we see anew.
Yes, that encounter with God, that Godstrike of insight, can knock us off our feet and completely and fully change and de-center our comfortable, predictable lives.
Yes, that Godstrike of Truth can cause us at first to enter into a time of chaos, insecurity, fear, and confusion, before the way we need to go becomes clear.
Yes, that Godstrike of Mission can leave us for a while in a place of not imagining the way forward, of having to depend on the guidance of the Holy Spirit for our new direction, and for a while dwelling in an area “in between.”
Yes, that Godstrike of Light and Power can illuminate what we have not wanted to see, challenge us to see differently through the eyes of faith, so that we can trust the Holy Spirit and to commit to following Jesus into places we do not want to go.
The eyes of faith see differently than the eyes of fear and function. Because the eyes of faith have been Godstricken!
South African theologian Christopher Peppler platforms the psalmist to help us understand the cross as God’s thunderbolt: “Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed! Truth springs up from the earth, and righteousness smiles down from heaven” Psalm 85:10–11 (NLT).
In Peppler’s words:
“When lightning strikes the earth we only see the vivid bolt flashing down from the clouds. What we don’t see is the complementary charge of the electricity that leaps up from the earth to ‘kiss’ the lightning and the super-hot blaze of the electrical fire.
God the Son came from heaven and incarnated as the God-man Jesus of Nazareth. In him, the lightning of heaven kissed the earth in unfailing love and truth. For over three years Jesus taught, healed, delivered, and raised the dead. The Holy Spirit faithfully recorded the things he said and did so that we might live in the dazzling brilliance of his being. In Jesus the nature, character, and values of the Godhead are illuminated, and in this light, we are able to interpret the Bible and life. The cross of Calvary was the spot where the lightning of God again struck the earth. The unfailing love of God the Father flashed down from heaven in a dazzling smile that would light the world forever. Embodied truth rose up from the earth, arms outstretched on the cross, and the two met. In Jesus Christ, Son of God, truth and love meet in perfect balance. In Jesus Christ and in him alone, truth and love meet in a blaze of revelation and salvation.”*
When Jesus strikes our hearts, we will all be changed. Because when Jesus short-circuits the inner workings of our minds and hearts, we don’t just get new eyes. Our entire identity is changed. We see differently, because we are different.
Saul becomes Paul.
And you shall become…..?
Only you and God know what your new name and mission will be. But when all of Jesus’ church becomes “Godstruck,” the power of the Holy Spirit will emerge, powerfully and forcefully, with change in its wake.
We, God’s faithful, at this time in the world today, must all pray for God to strike people everywhere with new faith, new life, new purpose, and new mission in the Name of Jesus.
The heart of Jesus waits to be re-awoken and incarnated in all of us.
Church, today is your Birth-day. Today may your name be called: Bride of Christ, Voice of God to the People of God, Church of Faith, the People of God’s Heart, the Joy of the Lord, Loyal Followers of Jesus.
Followers of Christ….
Come forward now and declare Jesus as your Master and your Lord!
[You may invite people to come forward to the altar to receive laying on of hands for mission and proclamation. Or you may call for those among the congregation to witness to their own experiences of conversion.]
*Christopher Peppler, Truth is the Word: Restoring a Lost Focus (2013).
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
Moses Receives the Ten Commandments and Reappears with Radiant Face (Exodus 34)
John’s Testimony to Jesus’ Divinity (John 1:1-18)
Paul’s Experience of Heavenly Blinding Light and the Voice of Jesus (Acts 9:1-31)
Minor Text
The Genesis of the Light (Genesis 1)
God Makes a Covenant with Abram with Light (Genesis 15)
Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3)
Elisha Bids God Strike the Arameans Blind and then Restore Their Sight (2 Kings 6)
Psalm 4: The Light of Your Face
Psalm 18: The Consuming Fire
Psalm 27: The Lord is My Light
Psalm 104: The Lord is Wrapped in Light
Ezekiel’s Vision of Radiance and the Coals of Fire (Ezekiel 1)
The Throne of Flaming Fire (Daniel 7)
Jesus Heals a Blind Man and Talks About the State of Blindness (John 9)
The Radiant Face of Moses
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.
When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.
But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them.
Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.
When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.
John’s Testimony to Jesus’ Divinity
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”)
Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Paul’s Experience of Heavenly Blinding Light and the Voice of Jesus
Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.
Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So, they led him by the hand into Damascus.
For three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything.
In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.
The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.
In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”
But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?”
Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan.
Day and night, they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him.
But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall.
When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.
But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.
So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him.
When the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.
Image Exegesis: Fire and Light
The images and metaphors of fire and light in scripture are powerful and numerous. From the covenant made with Abraham with a torch of fire, to the shining of Moses’ face from his encounter with God, to Jesus’ transfiguration, to Paul’s flash of faith and insight, from Creation onward, Light signifies God’s creative presence, the shekinah revealed as Light. The voice revealed as Light.
Sometimes, called Angels of Light, the presence of God is described as intense and indescribable. Visions by Ezekiel and John in Revelation, as well as by Joel and Isaiah and Jeremiah all attest to God as seen as a vision of Light, sometimes flashing light, brilliant light, white, pure light. Even at Jesus’ baptism, the light that seemed like a dove alighting, shone upon Jesus as He began His mission.
Now, in this story of Paul’s conversion, we again see that experience of God as Light. But this time, it’s Jesus! John in his first gospel chapter makes sure we understand that God is Jesus and Jesus is God –both that creative Light force of the universe existing from the beginning of time. Jesus is the incarnation of the Light in human form.
When Paul is chosen by God, he isn’t just baptized in light; Saul requires much more changing! Saul is literally blinded and knocked off his feet by Jesus’ encounter with him.
Whereas the disciples experience the Light of transfiguration of Jesus or his ascension into the Light, Saul is slapped silly by that same Light! In a sense, God confronts him in the form and voice of Jesus, choose him, and afflicts him even as he cleanses him. For the Light is also the refiner’s fire.
And like a lightning bolt, everything about Paul is moved and changed. Altered permanently. He is thrust into a 3-day darkness and emerges baptized by fire!
All of Jesus’ teachings about the baptism of the Holy Spirit is seen in Paul’s “stroke of faith in Jesus.” And his propulsion into God’s mission in Jesus’ Name.
It’s as though something in him as “shifted.” And it certainly has.
With his past eyes removed, Paul now has his vision restored to see Jesus differently, to see Him truly.
The Light is not just a warmth and an illumination. It’s a literally the power of creative energy, creative disruption, the creative mercy of God that can knock down faulty currents and restore one into right thinking.
As Jesus opens His disciples’ eyes to understand/see the truth of scripture, so does He open Saul’s heart to hear His voice and the Truth of who He is. Paul just takes a bit more “knocking around” before he sees!
I like to compare this scripture with the one of Barak and Balaam and the encounter with God’s “angelic presence” blocking his path. He won’t listen, so God literally blocks him with God’s powerful, sheer Light –the same Light that blocked the garden, and then opened it again at the crack of the tomb, the same Light that will come again as Victor to re-create the heavens and the earth.
Jesus is the Light. And Paul will spend the rest of his days, insisting that it’s true! He knows. He has been changed. Through and through.
*For more on “voice,” as a metaphor, see Story Sermon for Pentecost from 2016: “Godstruck.”