A Jesus intervention
by Pauline Simonsen
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Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? … I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (Acts 9:4b,5b).
Read Acts 9:1–9
If ever a man needed a powerful intervention in his life, Saul did. His whole existence was built on passionate adherence to Judaism. He lived and breathed it, and when it was apparently threatened by the surviving followers of Jesus of Nazareth, Saul opposed them with every fibre of his being. Read Acts 22:3–5! Carrying letters of authority from the high priest himself, Saul takes the purge into other cities, to Damascus. He is a merciless foe to Christ-followers everywhere.
Imagine him on his two-week walk to Damascus. The single-minded focus, the fierce determination. Refining his murderous plans for the days ahead. His absolute certainty of the rightness of his purpose and actions.
Did he converse much with his fellow travellers? As he recited Old Testament scriptures to himself, what did he pray?
And then, the risen, ascended Lord Jesus intervenes in Saul’s life. His travelling party are all struck down by a light from heaven, brighter than the noonday sun. Saul hears a voice speaking in Hebrew Aramaic – words that only Saul needed to understand. ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? … I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’
Can we even begin to imagine the impact of those words on Saul? His utter confusion and disbelief? The appalling realisation that if Jesus is alive, is God, then Saul has completely misunderstood everything. His world is shaken to its very foundations.
Blinded Saul is led by the hand into the city, vulnerable, humbled, shattered. For three days he is like a dead man, not eating or drinking, not seeing.
But beginning to see.
Seeing how all his certainty was quite wrong; how his religion has blinded him to his God. Beginning to see Jesus. Three days in the grave, as his old life dies around him, in him.
The shattering of Saul always sobers me. I remember the times when I have been convinced of my rightness, utterly sure of the correctness of my way – only to discover with shock that I was plain wrong. Or misguided. Or didn’t have all the facts or know the whole story. And in my judgement of others, I was judging Jesus.
So the Lord Jesus speaks into my life, shining his words of truth into me, and I die again to my ego. And am reborn into grace, and his life.
Lord Christ, forgive me when in my blind certainty I have judged and condemned others – and so hurt you. Shine your truth and grace into me, Lord Jesus, and save me from myself. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.
Pauline Simonsen is the dean of Emmaus, a Christian training provider for adults in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Pauline is also a spiritual director and enjoys leading retreats or guest speaking for the wider Christian church. She is married to Roger, and they live with two much-loved cats in the beautiful Manawatu region of New Zealand.
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