In today’s first reading Paul talks about his life, his gains and his losses. He tells us he has been forced to reevaluate everything in the light of knowing Jesus:
“But whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Paul gives us a bit of his autobiography. He describes himself as an observant and zealous Jew: “circumcised on the eighth day…in observance of the law a Pharisee, in zeal I persecuted the Church, in righteousness based on the law I was blameless.” Paul was an observant Jew, blameless in righteousness based on the law. He is not claiming to be perfect or sinless. When Paul sinned, he confessed his sins and received forgiveness from God, particularly on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. When Paul states that he was a Pharisee he does not mean he was a legalist or self-righteous. The Pharisees were a lay reform movement within Judaism. Most Pharisees were holy and good, zealous for the things of God. Paul was zealous and righteous and therefore he persecuted some of his fellow Jews who claimed that Jesus was the Messiah, because a crucified messiah was a scandal.
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-24).
When Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, he realized that God’s ways are not his ways and the in spite of all his learning and zeal for God he had judged things wrongly. Now he was forced to reevaluate everything in the light of knowing Jesus. Christ Jesus was the lens or optic through which he must judge everything, his customs and traditions, and the ways of God.
Today, you and I, like Paul, are invited to encounter Jesus and to know Christ Jesus as our Lord. Like Paul, you and I are challenged to reevaluate everything in the light of knowing Jesus.
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Image: “Saint Paul” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.