Mission in the Bible 13: Divine Initiative Seen in the Conversion and Call of Saul/Paul (Acts 9:1-19a)

By Dave Faulkner on June 30, 2024

I don't look forward to my eye test every two years. When they ask you how many dots you can see that have flashed up momentarily to test your peripheral vision, I'm always afraid of getting it wrong. I don't like the sensation of the air pumped into my eye to test for glaucoma. And I'm not fond of the flashing light when they take a photo of my retina.

Last time, having gone into see the optometrist and she had completed all her tests with different lenses and reading letters on a board, and then shone her torch into my eyes, she then said to me, "Were you told last time that you are going to develop cataracts at a later date?"

"No," I replied, while silently thinking, "Oh great, another sign of getting older."

This famous story of Saul's Damascus Road conversion can be organised under the theme of sight. Saul is blinded, but Ananias receives a vision. Note the contrast: blindness and vision.

When the Lord blinds Saul and later heals him, and when he speaks to Ananias in a vision, he is showing that he is in charge and he is taking a divine initiative to bring salvation not only to Saul, but also to many others.

Firstly, then, the blinding of Saul:

To all intents and purposes, Saul has a licence to kill. He is 'still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples' and asks the high priest in Jerusalem for letters permitting him to take prisoner any 'followers of the Way' in Damascus, with the help of the synagogues (verses 1-2). I think we can safely assume that even though he only has permission to arrest people, the religious authorities in Jerusalem will probably turn a blind eye if he also kills anyone. After all, they had stoned Stephen to death, and Saul had approved (Acts 7:1-8:1).

Since Stephen's summary execution, persecution had broken out against the disciples of Jesus. Apart from the apostles, they had scattered from Jerusalem. Surely things were out of control. They feared for their lives. Some years later, Saul (by then named Paul) would tell the Galatian Christians that he was destroying the church. This is a lethal crisis for those first believers.

But God is in charge, and if his church is powerless, he is not. He takes the initiative. Jesus intervenes.

And he intervenes in a way that counters all the sentimental 'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild' nicey-nicey Jesus images. He acts as the holy king in blazing glory.

Of course, Jesus has wider purposes here. Not only does he save the physical lives of believers who would have been arrested and most likely tortured and probably killed, he acts here to bring Saul to him so that many more will be saved in the spiritual sense.

But to get to that point Jesus has to act in a way that the writer and friend of C S Lewis Sheldon Vanauken called 'A Severe Mercy.' Saul is so set in the ways of his misguided zeal that it will only take something radical to stop him, and, moreover, to humble him before his Lord.

So the Damascus Road conversion is dramatic, but for a specific reason. And those of us who worry that we might not be Christians because we have not had what is often called a 'Damascus Road experience' need not worry. A survey some years ago showed that little over a third of Christians can name the date or time of their conversion. I am one of that minority. For me, it felt like a sudden revelation. But for most believers, it is a gradual process.

Think of it this way: do you have to remember the moment of your birth to know you are alive? Of course not! None of us does! We know we are alive because we manifest the signs of life. Our heart beats. We breathe. We eat and drink. We think. We get signals from our senses and our nerves.

In the same way, the question for us in terms of faith is less, do you remember the day you were converted, and more, are you showing signs of life in Christ? Do you love Jesus and want to know him more? Is the fruit of the Spirit growing in you? Do you have a desire to worship him and to serve him in the world?

Saul needs to be stopped in his tracks and humbled. I don't think it's unreasonable for us in our prayers for some people and places to ask the Lord to do 'whatever it takes' to humble people before him and bring them to repentance and faith.

Secondly, the vision of Ananias:

Saul will become famous as Paul and will become probably the most influential follower of Jesus ever. He will carry the Gospel to nation after nation and write letters that reverberate down the centuries. Just one of them – Romans – transformed the lives of St Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, and John Wesley, each of whom went on to have major impacts on Christianity and the world.

But Ananias? He makes this one appearance in the story and then disappears from view. Yet, by being the model disciple he leads Saul to Christ and the implications are, as I just indicated, transformative for the world for over two thousand years so far.

When the Lord calls him in a vision, he gives the exemplary response of a Jesus-follower: "Yes, Lord" (verse 10) – or "Here I am, Lord," as other translations render it. It's reminiscent of the boy Samuel in the Temple in the Old Testament, hearing the voice of God for the first time and learning from Eli to say the same thing: Here I am.

Yes, Lord. Jesus appears and speaks to one who says yes to him. But if the thought of saying yes to Jesus makes us nervous, note that it did to Ananias, too. When he hears that Jesus wants him to go and lay hands on Saul (verses 11-12), he responds with an understandably anxious question:

¹³'Lord,' Ananias answered, 'I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. ¹⁴And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.'

I think he is somewhat like Mary when the Archangel Gabriel appears to her and tells her she is going to conceive the Messiah, despite being a virgin. She certainly had her questions.

And it's OK for a 'Yes, Lord' to be accompanied by questions, because Jesus is patient to explain to Ananias why it is important that he obeys:

¹⁵But 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. ¹⁶I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.'

Ananias has questions, but they are not a reason for him to turn 'Yes, Lord' into 'No, Lord' (which is a contradiction in terms, anyway).

Jesus gives us no guarantees of whether we will be well-known believers like Saul/Paul, or obscure ones like Ananias. What he requires of each of us is, 'Yes, Lord,' even if it is accompanied by questions.

Thirdly and finally, the scales drop from Saul's eyes:

Blind Saul has nevertheless received a vision of Ananias coming to lay hands on him to restore his sight (verse 12), and now it happens. As Ananias prays, scales fall from Saul's eyes (verses 17-18).

In a sense, scales have fallen spiritually, too, from both Saul and Ananias. Saul receives the Holy Spirit (verse 17), and he will now be able to redirect his zeal in the holy cause of Jesus and his kingdom. His baptism (verse 18) confirms this radical change of direction. Moreover, he will now have the spiritual strength to endure the suffering that will come his way as he sets out on this mission (verses 15-16).

And in Ananias' case, he addresses Saul as 'Brother' (verse 17). They are not biological family, and nor is this about shared ethnic identity. They are family in Christ. Saul takes food (verse 19), which likely means that he and Ananias share table fellowship[1]. Yes, the persecutor and one who was possibly a fugitive from him[2] are one. This is the miracle of the Gospel. It is similar to Jesus bringing both Matthew the tax-collecting Roman collaborator and Simon the Zealot freedom-fighter together in his twelve disciples. Faith in Jesus does this – even, dare I say, making Spurs and Arsenal supporters one!

There is a lot of talk in the world about how there is only one race, the human race, and that there is more that brings us together than keeps us apart. Unfortunately, that well-meaning talk overlooks the way in which sin has broken relationships. But here, Saul and Ananias' eyes are opened to see that it is Jesus who restores this unity. That human unity is now found in him.

This is what Saul, later as Paul, will say to the Galatians:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

This is Jesus opening our eyes to the fact that the Gospel is not just personal, individual reconciliation with God – the forgiveness of our sins. It is also the healing and reconciliation of our relationships with one another.

And that's why it's important that the church demonstrates this if we are to be a sign of the Gospel. It's why I love going to my church at Lindford, where the worshipping congregation goes right across the generations, across races, across social and educational backgrounds, and we hang together as one body in Christ. The politicians should be envious! Because they can't create something like that! But Jesus can!

What will we do so that our church life is not just fellowship with people who are just like us? Do we believe at this election time that we can hold unity in Christ with Christians of differing political convictions, for example? In a deeply divided nation, this is the sort of thing that can become a powerful witness. We need to 'see' this so that the world will see Christ.

Conclusion

In using this metaphor of sight and blindness for this sermon, the old chorus popped into my head:

Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus,
To reach out and touch him
And say that we love him.
Open our ears, Lord,
And help us to listen,
Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus.[3]

But open our eyes, Lord, that we may walk with you and not resist you and need blinding and humbling to find you. Open our eyes, Lord, that we may say yes to you, even when we have questions. Open our eyes, Lord, to see that your Gospel brings reconciliation both with you and with others and help us to practise that to your glory before the eyes of the world.

[1] Craig Keener, Acts, p282.

[2] Keener, p281.