And Suddenly

How must Saul have felt?  Having designed and implemented a critical operation to prevent the spread of this crazy news about Jesus and hopefully eradicate The Way forever.  He had zeal for the truth, as he saw it.  He had driving passion.  He was on a mission and Saul was not one to fail.

But what was going through his mind when he heard the back bending light from Heaven say “… why are you persecuting me?”  To be sure the light was talking to him since the voice used his name twice in addressing him ” Saul, Saul, …”  What was Saul thinking at that moment?  

The questions are obvious: 1. Who is this light coming from? and 2. How am I, or even could I be, persecuting him?  The initial thought is obvious as well: I am in trouble.  A light flashes from an indeterminate point in heaven, focused directly on Saul.  The light is powerful enough to force Saul to his knees and is accompanied by a voice, speaking from no visible person, indicating that Saul has been doing things that this being does not like.  This constitutes an Uh Oh moment.  

To Saul’s further dismay, he finds out that this light and voice belong to Jesus himself.  The same fringe, back wood, hick leader that these lunatics of The Way have been proclaiming as the Messiah is now speaking to Saul from a blinding, prostrating, heavenly light.  Saul had written Jesus off as a dime a dozen rebel, a come and go blip on the screen of religious history.  He had accepted, with honor, the job of making the name Jesus disappear in the grave of thousands of his pathetic followers.

And suddenly Saul understood.  He was wrong.  Jesus was real.  The truth of this news must have hit him like a ton of bricks.  Saul was now in an eternal pinch between what he had dedicated himself to and what he now understood to be the truth.  He had to decide if he would look the obvious in the face and, through pride, make up his mind to stick with his truth, or reject himself and accept the truth that Jesus was the Messiah.  He had to turn his back on all that he internally knew as fact and his understanding of all that he was taught to accept.  He now had to believe something that he had ridiculed as insane babel from a community of freaks.  

It was done right there on the ground.  Saul became an instant servant of the One whom he had fought to destroy.  In God’s own words - “a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.  For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”  Acts 9:15-16

And suddenly Saul’s life was changed forever.

Acts 9:3-9