Saul, why ?

Sunday April 18, 2021

Saul, why ?

Acts 9.4 - He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying to him : "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me ?".

Do you not find this passage extraordinary : the life of a man will be completely turned upside down by this meeting ? But my thinking goes beyond this wonderful miracle.

Saul of Tarsus was a wicked, murderous and vindictive man. What surprises me is Jesus' lack of reproach ! He who had severely apostrophized the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, asks, one might almost think in a soft voice : "Why are you doing this Saul ?" ". The answer might lie in why Saul was actually doing this. He was zealous for God ! Of course he was wrong all along the line, but his motivation was to please the God of Israel, whose stern nature he knew only. From there, there is only one step to take to say this to yourself : "What God hates the most, what turns him up in a 'ball', is hypocrisy !". And for those who are not well aware of what hypocrisy is, it is to make believe in a virtue, a quality that we do not have.

What also makes me happy about this passage is that Jesus did not say : "Why are you persecuting my Church ?", But He said : "Why are you persecuting me ?". When someone hurts us, it is the Lord that he is hurting. Jesus sympathizes with our suffering, associates with our suffering, absorbs our suffering.

It reminds me of a story that happened in China during the persecution of Christians. One of them, we'll call him Lee, got caught by a militia. Around his neck, they had attached a sign that read : "Lee is a bastard !", And they "walked" him around the village. This is a very humiliating insult for a Chinese. Our poor Lee was crying while praying to the Lord : "You see Lord how humiliated I am...". Barely over his prayer, one of the persecutors cried out : “We're going to strike out Lee's name and put, 'Jesus is a bastard' instead. And the sweet voice of the Lord came to Lee with these words : "This I also carried."

Good reflection.

Source (Ezekiel 37 Ministry)