The Conversion of Paul on the Road to Damascus, by Caravaggio.
I don’t like weakness. I don’t like failure. I don’t like to feel lost, and forlorn, and sad. I don’t like feeling foolish, looking foolish, acting foolish, being the fool.
So … why, why does the Risen Christ appear most powerfully, most helpfully, most beautifully when I am weak, when I am grieving, when I am failing, when I am the fool?
The risen Christ appeared to me on the worst day of my life, making it simultaneously the best day of my life. On the day when I painfully chose sobriety, I was confronted not only with my own weakness and grief, but with my own wrongdoing. And in that confrontation, I found peace. I found acceptance. I found painful correction. And I found a path to health, a path to strength, a path to usefulness.
But it has always been like this. I am not alone. I am not unique.
The risen Christ appears to Mary Magdalene when she is stricken with traumatic grief: she stays by the tomb to weep, openly, and only then does she see the Risen One. Mary had understandably responded to the catastrophe at the center of her life—the violent killing of her last, best hope—with abject sorrow. (Note, however, that Mary never gave in completely to despair: she stayed by the tomb, a choice that even in the throes of grief reveals her strength of character, and her abiding faith.) But oh, how she wept. She not only failed to imagine how anything good could follow all that had happened, all that was still happening; she failed even to recognize her friend when he appeared before her, badly wounded but very much alive. But then he spoke her name, and she recognized him, and after he met her in the worst moment of her life, she rose up in strength to become the first apostle, the first to cry out, “I have seen the Lord.”
The risen Christ appears to the disciples when they are in hiding, shame-faced, guilt-ridden, culpable in his execution because they fled in terror when he was arrested, rather than defend or protect him. Not only had their greatest hopes been dashed, but they were appalled by their own weakness, their own failure, their own broken selves. Not only were they terrified that the authorities would find and destroy them, just as they had destroyed their teacher; they were also miserable victims of their own self-destructive actions. But the risen Christ appeared to them in the depths of their anguish and weakness. He breathed the Holy Spirit on them. He wrenched them out of their crisis. He toughened them, bucked them up, pulled them to their feet, and transformed them into apostles.
The risen Christ then appears to the Jerusalem authorities, albeit indirectly, when his followers bravely stand up to them and tell them that the one they handed over, the one they condemned to death, has overcome their resistance: it turns out that they failed to destroy him. The Jerusalem authorities thought that they had been strong, but they were weak. They thought that they had been in the right, but they were mistaken. And in their encounter with the community of the Risen One, they finally come to terms with their own folly.
And finally, Saul: Saul the Pharisee, Saul the persecutor of the Jesus Movement, Saul the latecomer to that same movement. Saul is confronted on the road and is struck to the ground, incapacitated for three days, knocked flat.
The risen Christ appears to us when we are grieving; the risen Christ appears to us when we are weak; the risen Christ appears to us when we have lost, or when we are confronting our most dreadful mistakes.
But it is the grieving who need someone bearing authentic joy. It is the weak who need someone strong. It is the wrongdoers who need a redeemer, a just judge, a merciful savior.
Paul our apostolic patron, Paul our name saint, Paul our forebear—Paul reflects often on this basic but confounding truth about Christianity: ours is a faith for the grieving, for wretches, for the guilty, for the losers. Paul points to the cross of Christ and acknowledges readily that some find it a stumbling block, and others a folly. He meditates on a “thorn in his flesh”—and what he means exactly by this thorn, he does not say—and Paul concludes that in Christ, “power is made perfect in weakness.”
Power is made perfect in weakness.
Power is made perfect in weakness.
This needs to be broken open, unpacked, brought to light, explained, and finally understood. Here are a few ways to do that.
Power is made perfect in weakness; joy is made perfect in grief. The Risen One meets Mary inside her grief, not with a glib message of glee, but bearing his open wounds on hands, feet, and side. This means our deepest grief has a home here, meets a companion here, receives authentic consolation here. In Christ I do not throw down my grief, no longer heartbroken: that is a false fantasy. Instead I throw open my grieving heart, to embrace another grieving person, to endure the sight of the wounds that mark us both, to trust that we will not weep forever in a graveyard, but step first into and then beyond our heartbreak and become wise healers, together, in a world shattered by loss and death. Power is made perfect in weakness; joy is made perfect in grief.
Power is made perfect in weakness; vindication is made perfect in guilt. The Risen One confronts his betrayers and his political enemies in their guilt, not with an easy message of cheap forgiveness—for that would gravely dishonor their victims, of whom Christ is only the first—but with the restorative power of justice. This means our deepest guilt is healed by Christ, if painfully, in conversation with our own holy work of authentic remorse. I am sorry for what I have done that I should not have done, and in my remorse the risen Christ is present, first confronting and then, with sweet relief, forgiving me. I then go on to work as an apostle of restorative justice for others. Power is made perfect in weakness; vindication is made perfect in guilt.
And finally, the witness of our patron Paul: Power is made perfect in weakness; victory is made perfect in failure. Paul returns again and again to the theme of his old accomplishments and abilities, and how finally they added up to nothing at all. He was the last and least of the apostles, not just a denier like Peter or even a betrayer like Judas, but a persecutor, a zealot for the wrong cause, a perfect failure in his effort to do the right thing, to be the righteous person, to succeed, to win. Flat on his back on Damascus Road, gasping for breath, unable to see, unable to speak, unable to stand: in this moment of extreme vulnerability, Paul loses everything. He loses his friends, his job, his vocation. He loses his sight, his confidence, his power. He is as good as dead. But all of this is restored by Christ, but never again for Paul’s own honor or glory. All of his abilities are returned to him, this time even stronger and better, but he is the last and the least, the failed runner in a race won by Christ, the patron of all who are knocked to the ground, all whose ambitions are crushed, all who lose. Power is made perfect in weakness; victory is made perfect in failure.
Are you grieving? Are you guilty? Have you lost?
Are you on the brink of despair? Are you certain nobody wants you, what with all your warts and weaknesses? Do you believe the winning team won’t ever pick a loser like you?
Then praise the Risen One, whose heart holds all our grief, and who sends us to embrace our grieving neighbor. Praise the Risen One, who appeared first to the wrongdoers, and teaches restorative justice to this world gone mad. Praise the Risen One, who wins by losing, and lives by dying, and chooses heartbroken guilty losers to be a mighty fellowship of apostles and prophets and martyrs.
This is what we Christians mean when we sing our sibling Paul’s great refrain, “Power is made perfect in weakness.”
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Preached on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (transferred), 1-28-2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Acts 26:9-21
Psalm 67
Galatians 1:11-24
Matthew 10:16-22