Easter 6a 2026; 4 May
Acts 17:22-31; Jack Hardaway
NO ESCAPE
I think we missed something.
It’s like falling asleep watching a movie and waking up and the story has moved on without us.
We met Saul last week in the book of Acts, overseeing the execution of Stephen for proclaiming Jesus as the Risen Lord.
Today we skip ahead ten chapters and find that Saul is now called Paul and he is proclaiming Jesus as the Risen Lord as well.
It’s like he had a stroke and a massive personality change.
Paul used to find God by killing people, inflicting punishment and pain.
Now Paul finds God everywhere, but especially in the passion and resurrection of Jesus.
He went from inflicting pain to redeeming pain.
He went from being most likely to cast judgement to refusing to cast judgement.
And it was like a stroke, his conversion.
Struck blind, knocked off his high horse on the road to Damascus, by the visitation of Jesus, and then serving those whom he had been hunting down, much to their confusion and terror.
Nobody changes like that. Do they?
To be fair, Paul didn’t change overnight, after being struck down he disappeared into the desert for a very long time, three years, and he came back full of uncompromising and fierce love.
That is the Gospel. That is the good news, that yes they can, yes we can change. Or rather that yes the Holy Spirit can set us free, and drive us into the desert.
A world where God’s presence is scarce and only for a select few, to a world where God is near to all of us, evident to any who pay attention to the ordering of creation. And God’s presence is most clearly seen and known through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, whose judgement will set the world free from all bondage.
This is what we hear from Paul today.
Paul is an example of God’s presence Act-ing in the world.
Paul was pursued, relentlessly by the Holy One. That is what we see revealed in his life.
There is no escape. God will be known. Whether in the intricate gracious dance of the cosmos, or through the redemption of suffering through the power of the cross, or through the final things when creation is renewed, God’s presence is chasing each of us down, just like what happened to Paul.
I think most of the time I long for that overwhelming clear presence of the Holy One.
But then I pay closer attention and I see Paul and I see what the holy presence brings and I wonder if I could handle it.
The Holy Spirit isn’t part of a wellness plan to bring about a more fulfilling life.
It blinds us, it knocks us off our high horses, and we start over serving and loving those that we despised.
That is the pattern of the disciple of Jesus, at least according to Paul.
There is no escape from being remade into God’s likeness.
Love like that puts an end to all our plans.
The good news is that something amazing is happening.
The bad news is that there is no escape.
The universe has a deep pattern woven through every particle and thread.
The deep pattern is the dance of communion, of intimacy with the Holy One.
And Jesus is where the pattern tangles with the stuff of our lives.
And the Holy Spirit sets that dance free deep inside us, to live lives of intimacy and communion with each other.
The deep pattern of God’s presence is simply to love, and it is a love shaped like the cross, it is cruciform.
It frees us to deny ourselves and to lift up others.
It frees us to forgive and to serve those whom we once despised.
We are all caught up in that conversion, that change.
There are many chapters yet between here and there, between now and what will be.
If only we could skip ahead, get left behind by the story for a while, but there is no falling asleep. Each chapter of our lives matters immensely, and each chapter must be lived.
Live each chapter.
Welcome the Spirit that works deep within.
Something amazing is happening.