Acts 9:3-9 (NIV)
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.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
This moment became the watershed moment of Paul’s whole life, the moment that he revisited again and again, both internally, and in his testimony to others. He had gone to Damascus intent on destroying Christianity, but instead, he himself was destroyed, torn down to the ground and totally remade into a follower of the very one he was hounding.
As the bright light flashed all around him, visible only to Saul, not to his traveling companions, he fell stunned to the ground. And it was then that Saul saw the source of the light: a man from whom the brilliance emanated. And the man spoke to Saul, calling him by name. The charge He leveled against Saul was very serious: Saul was actively persecuting Him, and He demanded to know why.
Saul was dumbfounded. He had no idea who this shining figure was! An angel perhaps? And surely, he was not persecuting angels! So, He asked, “Who are you, Lord?”
The answer that flashed back in a deafening roar that terrified Saul was, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Those with Saul watched him write on the ground covering his ears. They could hear the disembodied voice but couldn’t make out the words that it was saying (Acts 22:9).
But there was more. Jesus commanded Saul to go into the city of Damascus, which lay just ahead, and wait for further instructions. Then the light disappeared, leaving Saul in utter darkness – the brilliance had completely blinded him!
His companions helped him into the city, where the letter from the high priest enabled them to easily find lodging. Saul’s companions had no idea what to make of this situation. In a single moment, Saul had been changed from a robust, healthy man, passionate and motivated by anger and hatred, into a blind, helpless man who simply sat in a corner of the house, refusing all efforts to get him to eat and drink.
Father, it is clear from our vantage point that Saul had experienced a life-shattering, heart-transforming encounter with the resurrected Jesus, an encounter that had torn him away from all that he had ever accepted about himself and his place in the universe. He had believed that he was doing Your work, but now he realized that he didn’t even really know who You were. Like Job (Job 42:4-6), his encounter with You had shattered his confident, self-affirming theology, and he was now left in the devastating position of having to question all that he had believed, all that he had built his life upon to that point. It’s a desperately uncomfortable place to be in (as I know from personal experience!), but it’s the best place from which to start over, to build a new life on a new foundation, the sure foundation of Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:10-11). Thank You, Lord, for the places at which You enter our lives with power, those places where You tear down things in our lives that are false, so that You can build in what is eternally true. Amen.
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