Sunday 5th May 2024
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.
Acts 9:4-5 (NIV)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On the Road to Damascus
Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus still ranks as one of the most dramatic moments in history. We still speak of a ‘Damascus road experience’ to describe an event that is life-changing. It certainly changed Saul’s life for ever, and for good.
He had been on his way to Damascus to look for those “who belonged to the Way,” (believers were not called ‘Christians’ until Acts 11), so that he might “take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” If you had met him on the road and asked him what he was doing, he could well have responded, “I am persecuting the church.”
That makes the conversation he has on the road all the more remarkable, when the risen Lord Jesus literally stops Saul in his tracks and asks him, “Why are you persecuting me?” Saul might easily have responded, “Well I don’t know who you are, but there’s been some mistake. I’m not persecuting you; I’m persecuting the church.”
But Jesus so identifies with his people that to persecute them is to persecute him. And later Saul (by which time he is known as Paul) comes to understand this, that Christians have Christ himself dwelling in them by his Spirit and they themselves are ‘in Christ.’ He will even say that Christ and the church are united in the same way that a head is united to the body.
This has at least two important implications. One is the comfort it gives to Christians who are suffering for their faith – from those who are in danger for their lives as they are in some countries today to those who are mocked by their colleagues or shunned by their friends because of their faith in Christ. If we ever find ourselves suffering for knowing Jesus, we can be sure that he is right there with us in the suffering. He feels it too.
Another implication is that, if Jesus so identifies with his people, then can his people do any less? How can we keep our distance from other Christians when Jesus puts himself so closely alongside them? It is noteworthy that the first thing Jesus asks Saul to do is to go into the city of Damascus and to find the believers there – the very people he had been on his way to persecute (much to the surprise of at least one believer there!). He is called to identify with them.
Lord, thank you for the way you identify with us as your people; may we be faithful ourselves, in identifying both with you and your people. Amen.
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)