A DAMASCUS MOMENT (PART 2)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”

“Yes, Lord,” he answered.

The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

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

But 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. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

Acts 9:10-16

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Saul, a fervent Jew, was persecuting and killing Christians in Jerusalem. He was good at it and took great pride in his work, a work fully sanctioned by the high priest. In his mind, Saul believed he was unstoppable and as the ninth chapter of Acts opens, we see him seeking to expand the reach of his work to Damascus.

After gaining approval from the high priest, Saul set out for Damascus on foot with a group of men who would help him find men and women who had placed their belief in Jesus (the Way) so he could arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem.

That was Saul’s plan but as we saw in yesterday’s first message in this series, Jesus enters the scene in a big way and shows Saul just how stoppable he was. We read where a bright light emerged from the heavens and flashed around Saul, driving him to the ground as Jesus spoke with a question:

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Not knowing who was speaking, Saul asked for identification and Jesus let him know that He was doing the talking. Saul would not speak another word as Jesus commands him to rise up and go into Damascus where he would be told what to do. Perhaps Saul thought within himself that he would get up and do no such thing. Perhaps Saul felt inside he would get up, go into Damascus, and do what he wanted to do, what he went to do in the first place.

But as he tried to open his eyes, he quickly realized that he was at the mercy of Jesus for his sight was gone. The only way he would make it to Damascus was to be helped there by the men who were with him, men shocked and amazed at what had transpired.

And so Saul went to Damascus where the scriptures tells us he sat blind and didn’t eat or drink anything. It was his Damascus moment as Jesus would show him a new way, one that would have him making disciples, not killing them. As we see in today’s message, the second in this series, Jesus needed someone else to play a role in the conversion of Saul to Paul and that person was a man named Ananias.

Of interest, Ananias was very aware of Saul and the kind of man he was. Saul’s wicked and murderous ways had left him with quite a reputation and that reputation obviously instilled fear in Christian believers, one of which was Ananias. If Saul was in Damascus, that couldn’t be good news for the Christians there. And so when Jesus comes to Ananias with his proposition to go to Saul and participate in restoring his sight, Ananias is hesitant and even a little reluctant to do so.

But unlike Saul, Ananias knew his Savior. When Jesus called out to him in a vision, Ananias doesn’t need to ask who is speaking. He knows it is Jesus and we see how he also respects the authority Jesus holds. For there was no need to question Jesus any further on what He was asking Ananias to do after He tells Ananias to:

“Go! This man is My chosen instrument to proclaim My name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

Saul had been disabled by Jesus, blinded on the road to Damascus. He was not a threat in any shape or form. He had been rendered helpless (and probably hopeless, in Saul’s view) and was completely reliant on Jesus to either restore or destroy him. In fact, while sitting blind for the three days, refusing to eat or drink anything, Saul committed himself to prayer and in one of his prayers, he received a vision of a man named Ananias coming to place hands on him and restore his sight.

Think about the hope Saul had to be holding onto, a hope that the vision would come to be and he would once again be able to see. It would be yet one more Damascus moment for him as he moved from being an enemy of Jesus to one of His closest allies, a chosen instrument to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles and to the people of Israel. Further, Saul had made Christians suffer for the cause they believed in and soon he would be on the receiving end of persecution as he started carrying out Jesus’ call to make disciples of all nations.

In this second message of a four message series, we see both Ananias and Saul have their respective Damascus moments, moments which led them into a deeper trust and reliance on Jesus.

For Saul, the restoration of his sight totally hung in the balance with Jesus holding the outcome in His hands.

For Ananias, he needed to develop a greater trust in Jesus, a trust that would never question anything He called to be done. There was no need to worry about what would happen if he went to Saul. Jesus would never lead him to something He wasn’t going to bring him through.

The same holds true for us today in regard to both these men.

Like Saul, we still rely on Jesus for our full hope and like Ananias, we never need question when Jesus call us to do something in His name, especially when life brings a “Damascus moment” our way.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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