Acts 9:1-19

Imagine yourself suddenly thrust into a dark room, so black that you cannot see your hand in front of your face. Imagine that you have cried out for help and are assured that help will come, though you have no idea when. Imagine that you find a few crumbs of bread in your pocket but that you have no desire to eat, no taste for food or water at all. Sit in this condition for a little while. Where does your mind turn?

Perhaps you begin to remember recent events in your life which have led to this moment. Maybe the first thing you remember are sounds. For instance, the thud and crack of stones smashing into flesh, of bones breaking; groans of agony, and a dying voice saying, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Who are “them?” Could you be one of “them?”

Again, in your memory you hear the frantic cries of men and women snatched from their homes and children. Arrested, thrown into prison, condemned to death. And are you the one ordering this violence?

Soon you are remembering the zeal with which you stood before the high priest and asked for letters authorizing you to travel to other cities, to tear apart more families in a desperate attempt to do- what? To put a stop to the teaching? The preaching? Preaching about what? Preaching about WHOM?

And these words, burned forever into your memory, unintelligible to everyone around you but clear and convicting to you: I AM JESUS, WHOM YOU ARE PERSECUTING.

Lord, surely not I?

For long hours, fasting but not hungry, blind but for the first time seeing, longing for forgiveness but full of remorse and overcome with shame, you sit in anguish. Suddenly, you hear a voice at the door, sense a presence drawing near. Gentle hands, as tender as a spring rain, and as refreshing, touch your face, and a voice, full of kindness, calls you from darkness into light, saying, “Brother Saul…”