14th Day of Easter, Saturday April 25: Acts 9:1-19

This is the best known bit in the book: the conversion of Saul. Acts reminds us that he has been persecuting churches. Now he is heading north on the road to Damascus – the major trade route north to Syria and in turn to Asia, with warrants to arrest Christians and bring them to Jerusalem. On the road, a blinding bright light drops him, and Jesus speaks to him: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?’ (Since adolescence, I prefer the King James translation of Jesus’ next comment, ‘it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks’). Stopped. Try it.

Is that conversion? Is that necessary? Is that enough? Do we have to experience a psychotic break to join the church? No. There are thousands of conversions reported in Acts, unlike this one. And this story doesn’t end on the road, but in the city. Three days blind, neither eating nor drinking, then Saul is sent Ananias. Saul needed someone to finish what started on the road. Ananias had to do it. Acts tells us that Ananias was directed to Saul in a vision in prayer, and that Saul was prepared to receive Ananias in a vision in prayer. When they met, touched, ‘something like scales fell from his eyes’. Blinded on a road. Sighted in a city room

Our evangelical heritage includes revivals and conversions, relying on this text and John 3 ‘born again’ talk. Our personal and evangelical experience knows how hard and how necessary it is for Ananias to meet Saul to touch. It’s not enough to be justified and saved alone – we need some sanctification, in community. But the insiders have to risk reaching out. Ananias had to go to Saul. Saul had to go to the church and then to the Gentiles. It’s our job. ‘Only Nixon could go to China’.