O GOD, who, through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may shew forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Yesterday* the calendar pointed us to one of the most surprising and formative events in the history of early Christianity: the conversion of St Paul.

When I was training, one of my essays asked whether ‘conversion’ is quite the right category to refer to what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. It’s honestly not as odd a question as it might first appear – since about the 70s there’s been a renewed appreciation for just how much seems to have stayed the same in Paul’s outlook. But while it’s important to recognise that Paul certainly didn’t convert from the God of Israel, as though the early Christians worshipped a different God, it is equally true that he converted to a faith in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and to convictions about his full identity which would have profound implications for his understanding of God.

Paul’s conversion manifests Christ’s glory on several levels. At the very most basic level, all three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts (chapters 9, 22 and 26) emphasise the dazzling, blinding light which Paul and his companions saw. Paul’s conversion is not caused, as most are, by the Christians preaching the Gospel to him. Instead, contrary to all expectation, the manifestation of Christ’s glory compels his assent. It is tempting to suggest that Paul sees the same thing Stephen saw at his martyrdom (remembering the link we drew between Stephen’s dying prayer and Saul’s presence at his martyrdom way back in December). If so, the persecutor saw with less clarity than the martyr.

Christians at the time seem to have viewed Paul’s conversion as manifesting Christ’s glory in that it miraculously turned their greatest persecutor into one of their most vocal advocates. Plenty of people have attempted to eradicate Christianity over the years, but none have seemed as likely to succeed as Paul was before his conversion. The Christians at this time are a tiny movement, still geographically limited in scope and more or less confined to the fringes of the Jewish community. Sustained persecution from a man of Saul’s zeal and abilities could easily have dealt the nascent church a death blow.

Instead, Jesus ensures that the person most likely to have destroyed Christianity is remembered as the person who wrote almost half the books of the New Testament. It is difficult to imagine how Christianity and the history of Christian thought would look without Paul’s mighty contribution. It truly was, as the collect says, a ‘wonderful conversion’.

But it’s not just wonderful because of the power Jesus displays in making his bitterest enemy into his most zealous ambassador. There is a wonderful tenderness to it as well.

There is tenderness for the Christians involved. Christ’s question is not ‘why are you persecuting my followers?’ but ‘why are you persecuting me?’ I’ve read the suggestion that Paul’s doctrine of union with Christ, so central to his understanding of salvation and the Christian life, was born of reflection on these words. Christ does not view the suffering of his loved ones from a distance. He is truly present in them, truly persecuted in them.

But there is tenderness for Paul himself as well. It’s easy to forget that Jesus didn’t need to convert Paul to bring his campaign of persecution to an end. He could have just zapped Paul and raised up an Apostle from the astonished chap standing next to his sizzling remains. But Jesus is the one who taught us to pray for our persecutors. That is not how Jesus chooses to reveal his glory. He does make an example of Paul – but an example of his mercy that extends even to the chief of sinners.

This tenderness is displayed in a touching detail from Acts. Ananias, understandably, is initially rather reticent to go to visit the most notorious persecutor of the Church: “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” (v13-14)

But we hear none of this when he arrives to see Paul, blind and vulnerable, the feared persecutor now at the mercy of one he meant harm. “Brother Saul…” Ananias says. The chief of sinners has become an Apostle, the violent oppressor has become a brother.

The conversion of Paul not only reveals Christ’s glory in itself, it is part of the manifestation of his glory to the Gentiles. Paul is, after all, preeminently the Apostle to the Gentiles. As the collect for the day puts it, through Paul’s ministry God has caused ‘the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world.’

There’s probably an intended allusion here, not only to the light seen in Paul’s conversion, but to Acts 13:47 in which Paul applies one of the Servant Songs to himself:

“I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth”

We are probably more comfortable thinking of these passages as simply applying to Jesus. And indeed this one does – we’ll see that next week when we look at Simeon’s Song. For some, it may raise questions about how we read the Old Testament and find its fulfilment in the present.

Part of what I think is going on here is that the theology of union with Christ really does go all the way. Paul is Christ’s apostle bringing Christ’s light to the Gentiles. Just as the suffering servant embodies and fulfils everything Israel as a nation had failed to be, so now, through our union with him we now share in his call to be a light to the nations, to be what God’s people were always called to be.

There are a number of ways I think we could celebrate the conversion of Paul. For many years, the last weekend of January was when the UCCF held its main event week in London – so I’ve spent several Conversion of St Paul days doing first contact, going to lunch events and heading to All Souls’ in the evening. Paul has always been an encouragement to me that Christ has the power to bring about surprising conversions. Perhaps we can take this day to pray for people, especially the persecutors of the church and those whose opposition to the gospel is most adamant. Paul is proof that salvation is possible.

But the collect suggests another application. Since most of my readers are probably Gentiles, and all of us benefit enormously from Paul’s labours and insight into the Gospel, the collect suggests we “shew forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught”. Celebrating Paul’s conversion should make us joyful followers of Paul’s doctrine. Even within the Church, Paul is often treated with suspicion, as a liability, or some cases, a whipping boy.** This shouldn’t be the case. Paul is a mighty gift to the Church, and his conversion itself highlights several of the core ideas of his teaching that we hold dear. May the celebration of these things make us all a little more Pauline.

*Sorry this is a day late. There will be a post for Epiphany III as well, it’s just that this week has been very front loaded for me.

**You might notice that today I’ve gone for the BCP collect rather than the CW one. This clause is changed in CW to ‘may follow him in bearing witness to your truth’, a request in itself unobjectionable, but part of a pattern where CW collects seem to play down receptive emphases, and crucially, believing the apostles’ doctrine, and give the church a more active role. Nerds can compare the collect for St Luke’s Day for another example.

For a silly insight into things we do to celebrate, our dinner menu yesterday was tented fish (tenting, my wife informs me, is a cooking technique involving a foil tent) to represent Paul’s work as a tent maker and the ‘something like scales’ that fell from his eyes, served with Pasta Arrabiata, the ‘angry’ pasta, to represent the fury with which Paul persecuted the church. Dessert was tarte tatin, a sweet end that has to be flipped upside down to get out of the pan, to represent the sudden inversion of his conversion. We don’t take these things too seriously, but we love a theme, and if you enjoy both cookery and Dad jokes, that’s a great foundation for forming your own set of Church Calendar family traditions.