Samaria had now become the arena of new life. Jesus was building His church out of living stones…believers of every tribe and nation who were forming a new “race”…a “people” born of God…
…but…Stephen? His death caused an earthquake of hatred from the opposition, causing a tsunami of persecution that sent the believers fleeing in all directions.
“…Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”
Acts 8:1
Now the persecution had a champion…a man with a cause. Not only did this young Pharisee…,Saul, fanatical in his religious fervour to do God’s work, to protect God’s law at all cost…approve of the “elimination” of Stephen, but he also set about systematically stamping out this fire…
“Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”
Acts 9:1-2 NIV
This is what religion does! So determined to stamp out opposition…to be right at all costs…to defend a god that was unable to defend himself…that killing those who stubbornly refuse to comply serves a “righteous” cause. We see this pattern in religious fervour worldwide.
This young Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, blind to the truth of the Scriptures he had studied from his youth, could not stomach the intrusion of a village artisan called Jesus of Nazareth, into his theological framework, especially as this man was being worshipped as God. This, to him, was blasphemy of the highest order. To crown it all, Jesus’ followers insisted that He was alive!
Saul took it upon himself, with the approval of his religious overlords, to stamp out these defectors from the faith he followed with such fervour. Like the Moses he revered, who thought killing Egyptians was the way to freedom, he took to destroying these people of “the Way”, one by one.
Saul’s challenge was that the movement had spread far beyond the borders of Israel. Damascus, capital of the neighbouring Syria, was full of believers. Well! If that was so, he would go after them.
Jesus also had an agenda. Let Saul get close to his goal, far from his own protective shield…his supporters in this enterprise…and He had him! Bang! Right in the middle of his anticipated achievement, Saul met his worst enemy…his nemesis…this Jesus Himself, the one who was supposed to be dead…His body lying in a tomb outside Jerusalem.
“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Acts 9:3-6 NIV
“I am Jesus…” Saul was shocked…so shocked that he fell off his horse…onto the ground…on his face before Jesus…the same Jesus he was determined to destroy! Shocked…humiliated…devastated! So devastated that every intention that drove him to Damascus evaporated. Gone! His entire life…all his training…all his ambitions…all his theology…all his past, his future plans, his entire life…imploded in an instant! Like Isaiah of old, Saul was “undone”.
Who? Who was this whose light was so bright that Saul was blinded…permanently shut up into darkness with scales so impenetrable that they needed miraculous, divine intervention to remove.
Saul’s finally humble, honest question received a simple but mind-blowing reply… “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!” What? Alive? Saul’s mission…to stamp out the ones who believed this myth! “But I am going after the defectors…the people who are believing in this Jesus.”
“No, Saul, you are persecuting me. You see, Saul, these people are me, my body of which I am the head. You cannot touch any of them without touching me.” Saul learned his second brand-new lesson about this “Way”. First, Jesus was alive. Second, He was not alone. He had a body of people joined inseparably to Him. “Touch them and you have me to reckon with…Saul.”
“Lord!” That is all Saul needed to say…to confess with his mouth…to change sides forever.
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9 NIV
In that instant, he had met the criteria for salvation, for the radical, supernatural rescue from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son. Jesus was alive…and He was indisputably Lord.
In the years to come, Saul, later Paul, would hammer out, in his own experience, the truths of this “body of the faith” Jesus was entrusting to him. Through his written communications with churches and individuals, he would pass on to every succeeding generation what he was learning in these early days. As much as Paul’s writings were “theology”, they were also autobiography, prefaced by his repeated affirmation…”I have learned…”
So, the newly converted Saul, now redirected by an encounter with the living Jesus he would never forget, went on to Damascus a changed man. Blind, weak, humbled and broken, he entered the city…to be found by the man whom Jesus had already detailed to “find” him.
“In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”
Suspicious and afraid, Ananias protested… but Jesus reassured him…
“But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Armed with a commission for Saul from the mouth of Jesus Himself, Ananias obeyed. Imagine his mission…to inform this brand-new believer, this once-murderous persecutor of Ananias’ fellow-believers, that his, Saul’s, calling was to stand before kings with the very message that would condemn him. “Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord!”
Saul would have to learn, through the very suffering Ananias predicted for him, that suffering was grace, not punishment. He would learn that God’s grace, channeling strength for his weakness, would be the greatest victory of his life. He would learn, through everything he was called to suffer, that nothing in heaven, earth, or under the earth, could ever separate him from God’s love demonstrated in Jesus’ obedience, even to death.
So, Ananias obeyed…and Saul’s eyes were healed…and Saul saw, for the first time, his real purpose in life, to go to the world, to preach the good news to all nations, and to suffer for the name he had once hated.
“Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus.”
Acts 9:10-19 NIV
To be continued