NOTES for Act 9:4-5

With what pain these words must have been spoken to Saul: 'Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting Me?' The Lord is saddened to see His 'chosen vessel' directing all his efforts toward fighting Him. God had chosen Saul for His service, it appears, long before, and kept waiting for him finally to come to Him. He saw Saul, as He sees every other disciple, long before the first meeting with him (see the story of Nathanael's calling - John 1:43-49), so at this meeting the Lord is not 'getting acquainted' with a person as if He had never known him.

Meeting the Lord, a person suddenly realizes that he has been seen and heard, that the One who seems not to know him personally is deeply concerned with what he does and how he thinks. Christ, appearing to Saul, simply speaks to him sadly about the fact that what is in his heart does not bring God joy. And this personal address, this address by name, proves enough for mighty Saul to be broken and soon cease to exist - the 'old man' Saul becomes the 'new man' Paul (see Eph 4:22-24). Thus God's purpose for Saul-Paul is fulfilled.

But each of us is precious to the Lord in our own way. As the apostle Paul will later write about this: 'God arranged the members, each one in the body, as He chose' (see 1 Cor 12:12-18). And the Lord has a purpose for each of us - and each of us is called to strive with all our strength toward its fulfillment.

The words of the risen Christ, whom Paul met on the Damascus road, make a twofold impression. On the one hand, everything is simple and clear: it is useless to kick against the goads, God is in any case stronger than a human being, and it is not for a human being, even one as gifted in every respect as Paul, to resist the Kingdom entering the world. And yet: are there so few people resisting it? Does Christ appear to all of them as He appeared to Paul? The answer is obvious. Only one question remains: why is it so? Can the Risen One not appear to every doubter and even every opponent, so that, having run into Him as into the goad, the person would be convinced and turn from an opponent into a faithful follower, as happened with Paul?

If we consider this question, to use a modern expression, from a technical point of view, there is no problem here. The problem lies elsewhere: in a person’s spiritual choice and in the freedom of his will. The Kingdom cannot be imposed by force; it can only be accepted voluntarily. And not because an unbelieving person cannot see it, for if God wills, anyone will see the Kingdom, but because the structure of the Kingdom is formed by relationships of love that bind its inhabitants with God and with Christ, all of them with one another, and finally Christ Himself with His heavenly Father. Here one cannot get anywhere without goodwill: one cannot be made loving by force, and it is impossible to love against one’s will.

But what then about Paul, who ran into Christ and His love as into the goad? Where is freedom here? At first glance it seems that in this case there is no question of any freedom, if not for one “but”: Paul, while still Saul, had already made his choice. A choice in favor of God, the Torah, and the path of righteousness, as he understood them, of course. Now God only had to correct his ideas about Himself, about the Messiah, about the Torah, and about the path of righteousness. And He does this, quickly and decisively, in keeping with the character and personal qualities of the one whose path He wants to set straight. Having become Paul, Saul changed radically, qualitatively: he was joined to the life of that Kingdom about which previously he could only dream. But his spiritual vector remained the same; in this respect he did not betray himself. He only walked his path to the end, and at the end found what he had been seeking: the Messiah and the Kingdom.

In these words the path to Christ of almost every person is briefly set out. An encounter with Him is always unexpected; we do not recognize the God whom we seem to be seeking, without whom we are tormented and suffer. Paul was sure that he was defending the truth from those who had gone astray and fallen away; he was going to defend his own God. And when God addressed him, Paul asked the one question to which every person seeks an answer. Who are You, Lord? Who are You? Cosmic energy, a heap of idols that are easy and convenient to worship, or perhaps something abstract and distant, not involved in the life of the world in general or of a particular person in particular? Who is God? This is what troubles and disturbs a person.

Paul was the first to receive the answer in its simplest and most guileless form. God has nothing to hide from us; He is ready to reveal Himself: Jesus, whom we carefully and consistently persecute, whom we do not want to recognize. At that time a person needed living testimony in order to believe, and even now this is one of the simplest ways to tell a person about Christ. But now, when the Bible is available almost everywhere, how often people refuse the primary source so that under no circumstances will they hear: "I am Jesus."

We try to find any other answer to the most important question, putting all our strength into it. It is hard to kick against the goads, the Lord says. Not merely hard, but unbearably difficult; yet with a persistence worthy of a better use, we try to find a path where there is no place for God who became Man, was crucified, died, and rose again, God who comes to each person and says, "I am Jesus." And yet, if while following Paul's path we accepted this answer as he did, the world would look completely different.

Today's reading brings us back once again to the question of religion's boundaries and limits. It tells us of Saul's conversion to Christ; after his conversion, he will enter Church history as the apostle Paul. There is no doubt that Saul was sincerely religious and absolutely firm in his religious convictions: for his religion, he was prepared both to die and to kill (vv. 1–2). He was utterly ruthless. But religion that knows neither the Kingdom nor God's love is always ruthless, for it appeals to values it regards as far more important than human life. Yet Saul's ruthless religiosity was entirely sincere: from the beginning, he wanted only to do God's will and was absolutely convinced that by persecuting Christians he was fulfilling it in the best possible way. Of course, it was quite impossible to argue such a person out of his convictions. Conversion in the sense in which the word is often understood today was also impossible for him. For a modern person, “to convert” most often means either adopting a religion or exchanging one religion for another, and Saul would certainly not have agreed to that even under threat of death. But Christ needs precisely such servants, faithful to the end and ready for anything. And He makes Saul His servant. He does what no one else could have done, for no one else could have manifested the Kingdom in such fullness. He allows His future servant to experience and feel what the Kingdom is and who He Himself is (vv. 3–5). Then Saul converts. He was convinced not by human words, but by his encounter with the Risen One and his experience of the Kingdom. Yet Christian conversion can only be this: turning to Christ and the Kingdom, not adopting a new religion or moving from one religion to another. After his conversion, Saul remains the same energetic Saul; his first question to the Risen One is: what should I do next (v. 6)? His sincere and active nature could not endure inactivity, and God makes use of these qualities in the new convert: very soon Saul begins to preach, bearing witness to Jesus' messiahship and resurrection (vv. 20–30). He gives no thought to his former views or to what people who had known him in a completely different role will say about him. This is not because Saul was unaccustomed to reflection. Evidently, his encounter with the Risen One on the road to Damascus had made so great an impression that he could not help telling others about it and bearing witness. It was not merely a new truth that had been revealed to Saul: the Messiah had been revealed to him, and silence about such a revelation was impossible. Religion had come to an end. The fullness of the Kingdom had opened before the future apostle Paul.

Today we read about the conversion of Saul, an event that not only turned his life upside down, but also in many ways determined the course of Christian history. Such conversions do not happen often, but they have happened and continue to happen. In essence, every person sooner or later meets God on his path. This meeting often overturns a person's consciousness in much the same way as happened with Paul. He considered himself a servant of God, but turned out to be His enemy, and the reverse was also true: he thought Jesus was his enemy, but He turned out to be his Lord, his life, his calling.

In fact, such an overturning of consciousness is called repentance (in Greek, "metanoia," a "change of mind"). When a person suddenly sees that his whole life is a persecution of Christ, which he carries out inside himself or among those near and far from him, the mercy of the persecuted Son of God is also revealed to him. He will not only accept him among His disciples, but will also lay on him a new mission: not to tear apart, but to build up Christ's Church.

The Book of Acts tells of the great turning points in the history of salvation and in the spread throughout the world of the message about Jesus. Almost every scene recounts either astonishing miracles or momentous turning points in the lives of people who later became great luminaries of the Church. But a reasonable question may arise: how do all these outstanding events relate to the life of an individual, an ‘ordinary person,’ such as those who have always made up the overwhelming majority of the human race?

Apparently, Luke included all these striking and grand scenes from the history of early Christianity largely as illustrations, as particularly memorable examples of what God does in the life of every person He touches with His Spirit. And although people encounter God in different situations and in different ways, certain elements are always present—above all, the divine call and a shaking of the foundations of human life. Jesus says that ‘no one can come to Me unless the Father draws him’ (Jn 6:44). Moreover, this heavenly call or ‘voice’ cannot be earned by anything; ultimately, it cannot even be explained. The case of the persecutor Saul, who became the apostle Paul, is a striking confirmation of this. God alone knows the movements of a person’s heart and the twists and turns of their life. Another matter is that a person is not always ready to answer the call with complete seriousness and commitment. Incidentally, this too happens for reasons unknown to us. But if someone responds to God in kind—trust for trust, love for love—then their life, the life of a seemingly quite insignificant little person, becomes part of the great history of salvation. Through him or her, ‘the mighty works of God’ begin to be accomplished; he or she becomes ‘God’s chosen vessel,’ ‘filled with the Spirit,’ and takes part in building a new world that could embody all God’s most cherished purposes and dreams.

The Lord had prepared a surprise for Ananias. Ananias was plainly quite ready for God to speak to him. But even he did not expect this: to go to Saul of Tarsus, about whom everyone knows that he persecutes Christians and has come to Damascus with one purpose, to root out Christianity.

Ananias is shocked. But he does not reject the vision (though he could have said: going to Saul is madness, so this is not a vision but delirium). On the other hand, he does not argue with God; he does not say, "No, Lord, I am not going anywhere." He clarifies: "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to Your saints, and here in Damascus he also wants to persecute Your Church..." In answer, the Lord does not say whether this is true or not (evidently because it is already known that it is true); He says: "Go, because I have chosen him."

And Ananias makes the only right decision: he simply goes and does what the Lord told him.

Saul became one of those in whom Christ’s words to His disciples were fulfilled: “...whoever kills you will think that he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). Saul’s zeal was zeal for God, but it was directed along a false and criminal path. When evil is committed, it is difficult to say that the perpetrator “meant well,” yet even in such lamentable circumstances one should pay attention to the motives behind actions. Saul did want to serve God, and it must have been for this reason that He Himself intervened so that Saul’s desire could be fulfilled on the true path.