25 January 2024 Acts 9:1-22 Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle
Saul wasn’t converted on the Damascus Road.
He was converted on Straight Street, at the home of Judas in Damascus.
Saul was one of those people who were confounded by Christians, and people generally don’t like being confounded. They often react to their confusion with anger – Saul certainly did. He left Jerusalem “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), and even after he had his vision of Jesus along the Damascus Road, he had no idea what Jesus meant to do with him. He had already been blinded, and for all he knew far worse was still to come. He was still angry, and now he was also blind and afraid – who wouldn’t be? He was so upset, he didn’t eat or drink for three days (9:9).
Ananias wasn’t too pleased with how things were turning out, either. When Jesus appeared to him, and told him to go and heal Saul’s blindness, Ananias felt obliged to advise the Lord that Saul was actually a pretty bad guy (like Jesus didn’t already know that), who had evil intentions for Christian believers. Jesus replied, “You let me worry about Saul. You just go and heal him, like I said” (9:11-16).
So far, no one is very happy. There is no indication that anyone has had a change of heart, not Ananias and not Saul.
Ananias did as he was told, and within just moments of laying hands on Saul, “something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored” (9:18).
“Then he got up and was baptized” (9:18).
Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle not on the Damascus Road, but at the home of Judas on Straight Street in Damascus.
Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle not when he saw Jesus on the road, but when he saw Jesus in Ananias.
In Greek – the first language of the Acts of the Apostles – the verb meaning “to confound” is very nearly a synonym of the verb meaning “to prove.” They both refer to combining – they share a prefix, syn-/sym, which means “together.” The verb “to confound,” however, means literally, “to pour together.” It is combining in the sense of “mixing,” the kind of thing we mean when we say something or someone is “mixed up.” The verb meaning “to prove” means literally “to knit.” It is combining in the sense of “pulling things together,” the kind of thing we mean when we say that something or someone is really “put together.”
Saul the Pharisee was confounded, mixed up and angry about it, because he was a very smart man and not accustomed to being mixed up, and now he was very blind and afraid. Then he saw. He saw Ananias, all he believed, all he risked by coming to Saul, all he did simply because he loved and obeyed Jesus, and then it all came together. He saw.
Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle not when he saw Jesus on the road, but when he saw Jesus in Ananias.
Visions are rare. If we want more proof, more conversions, more faith, more hope, more charity, then people have to see Jesus in us.
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