Summary
Encountering the Living Lord
The road to Damascus runs through one of the world's most ancient and strategic cities—a commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, home to a large Jewish population and many synagogues. It is along this road that we are introduced to a guide who will lead us deeper into the heart of the gospel: Saul of Tarsus, also known by his Roman name, Paul. The two names are not a before-and-after; they are the Hebrew and Greek names of the same man, a Benjamite by birth, a Roman by citizenship, and a Pharisee by training.
We first meet him in Acts 7, holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen. By Acts 9:1-2 he is "still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord"—an idiom meaning his very breath was bent on the destruction of the church. Armed with letters from the high priest, he traveled to Damascus with full legal authority to arrest any man or woman who belonged to "the Way" and drag them bound back to Jerusalem. He believed he was doing right. As a Pharisee, he was zealous for the law, both written and oral, and convinced his persecution of the church was the very service of God.
At midday, with the sun directly overhead, a light brighter than the sun flashed around him. Saul fell to the ground and heard the voice: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" His companions saw the light and were knocked down with him; they heard a voice but could not understand the words. Saul alone heard the conversation. "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" Acts 9:3-7. In his later retelling in Acts 26, the Lord adds, "It hurts you to kick against the goads." A goad is what prods an animal forward; the Lord was telling Saul that all his striving against the truth had been a striving against nudges Christ Himself had been giving him. Every page of the Law and the Prophets that Saul knew so well had been pointing him to Jesus, and he had been resisting the very Scriptures he claimed to defend.
There is a quiet warning here for everyone who knows the Bible. Saul may have wanted the distance the law seemed to give him—a clear line with God safely on the other side, and his own righteousness on this side. We do the same when we measure our standing by how much we serve, how much we pray, how well we care for others, or how readily we point out the unrighteousness of our neighbors. The living Lord refuses to stay at that comfortable distance. He stops us on the road. As “Encountering the Living Lord” 8-11-24 makes clear, Saul's encounter is not merely a personal biography; it is a pattern for how Christ meets sinners who think they are righteous.
Saul rose blind and was led by the hand into the very city he had come to destroy. For three days he neither ate nor drank Acts 9:8-9. The Lord's blinding was an act of grace, giving him three days to run back through the Scriptures he knew by heart and finally to see them rightly—the Law and the Prophets pointing to the suffering Servant who would bear the transgressions of the world. The Christ Saul met on the road was the glorified Christ, the same risen Lord who appeared transfigured on the mountain and who would later appear to John in Revelation. And this glorified Lord commissioned His persecutor to a new task: "to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me" Acts 26:17-18.
We still encounter this same living Lord—not on a desert road, but where He has promised to be found: in His Word and in His Sacraments. Every time Scripture is opened or preached, Christ Himself confronts us, exposes our sin, and forgives it. Every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, He gives His body and blood "for the forgiveness of sins." This is not because of our righteousness, any more than Saul was saved by his. As Paul later wrote to Timothy, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost; but for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience" 1 Timothy 1:15-16. If the Lord could take a blasphemer, persecutor, and man of violence and make him an apostle, He can certainly do something with us. The work is His; the grace is His; and the living Lord still comes to meet us.
Video citations
- “Encountering the Living Lord” 8-11-24 — Oftentimes, when one travels to the Middle East, they have a tour guide and it's wise to have a tour guide when you visit the Holy Land because they know the ends and the outs, the safe places and…