The New Creation In the Mirror--May 8, 2025
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, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:1-6)
When we talk about God's new creation, it's not just "out there" in the world beyond us--it's within each of us. The resurrection of Jesus not only promises that one day God will make "a new heaven and a new earth," but also a new you and a new me. Just ask Saul.
These verse, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, begins the well-known story of Saul of Tarsus being commissioned by the risen Christ while he was literally on the way to Damascus to round up Christians and detain them in Jerusalem far away from their homes. This is sometimes called the "conversion" of Saul, because he really is turned 180-degrees around, from being dead-set against Jesus to becoming one of his most vocal apostles and devout disciples, going by his Greek name Paul in that new chapter of life. And what gets me every time about this story every time I read it is that Jesus doesn't wait for Saul to change on his own. Rather, Jesus initiates this transformation precisely while Saul is turned away from Jesus, convinced that this executed rabbi was a fake, a fraud, or a liar. The risen Jesus, however, is not offended or insulted by all of that--instead, he simply sets Saul's hostility aside and seeks him out anyway, in order to transform him into something new.
That's so different from the way popular piety usually talks, isn't it? So often, the loud voices of Respectable Religion put the onus on each of us to get ourselves "right with God" by showing some moral improvement, demonstrating our devotion, or showing how much we have changed as a precondition for having Jesus come into our lives. We love a good story of a reformed sinner who sees the error of his ways and then turns back to God. The more drama, the better, right? "I hit rock bottom, and then I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, quit drinkin', and started coming back to church--and then I invited Jesus into my heart, and everything's been great since then!" And without a doubt, I applaud folks who are able to change course after seeing their lives in a downward spiral or a vicious circle. But what I think that standard narrative misses is that God isn't waiting for us to get our act together first before entering into our lives. Jesus doesn't wait until we've started going to church to reach out to us, and the pull of grace doesn't wait for our action to kickstart it. In other words, Jesus doesn't wait until we've started to re-make ourselves first before helping us along into becoming a new creation. He seeks us even when we are turned completely away from him or are actively hostile toward him, and gets through to us even then. Even if we couldn't recognize it at the moment, Jesus is always the one taking the first step to bring us into relationship and pulling us out onto the dance floor rather than waiting for us to work up the nerve to leave the other wallflowers. If the risen Christ can seek out the murderous Saul while he is on a mission to make more innocent people disappear into detention cells, then he can seek us out even at our worst when we are turned away from him and covering our ears with our hands. And if that same Christ can make of Saul a bold witness to the expansive and inclusive love of God, just think what sort of new creations he can make of us.
The hitch to all this, however, is that it will mean each of us will have to admit we are in need of just that kind of re-creation. It will mean we face the uncomfortable truth that we are not just spiritual fixer-uppers in need of a little TLC and a fresh touch-up coat of paint, but that even we--even we church-going, creed-reciting, cross-wearing Respectable Religious People--are in need of complete and total renewal. Like Robert Farrar Capon put it, "Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works." And it's hard for us to admit that we Sunday-morning-pew-sitters need resurrection and re-creation. We would like to tell ourselves that we're already mostly on the right track and just need a little spiritual pick-me-up from time to time. Jesus instead shows us that even people like Saul (who was absolutely certain that he was doing God's work and pleasing the Lord by rounding up those he suspected of following Jesus) need a top-to-bottom renewal... and that we need to be made new creations, too.
It's easy for church folk to shake our heads in criticism of "the outside world," and to say, "You all need Jesus," as though it's just people "out there" who need to be transformed. The challenging thing the Scriptures keep telling us, though, is that each of us needs to be made into a new creation, re-oriented, and transformed in the light of Christ. Before we draw a rigid line between "those sinners" and "us saints," Jesus comes along to knock each of us off our high horses and to say, "I've come to transform, you, too. Now watch what you become in my presence and love." He doesn't wait for us to take the first step ourselves, but rather his presence is what allows us to turn in the first place. And he doesn't only have it in mind to reach "those people out there, once they get their act together," but will seek us out, too.
Don't be surprised, then, if at some point you find the living Jesus taking you (and me) by surprise and making something completely new out of us. Don't be surprised, either, if in that moment he shows us how many ways we were still pointed away from his kingdom agenda in the world, before he turns us around again to walk in his way.
Who knows what surprises, what transformations, and what signs of new creation might be in our path today?
Lord Jesus, make of us what you will today--make us new creations in your likeness.
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