Saul didn’t know Jesus.  Blind, thrown down in the dust there on the road, Saul calls the one speaking to him Lord (9:5): whoever is speaking to him has authority and power.  Saul thought he knew God, thought he was serving God with zeal and devotion.  Saul regarded himself as a man of faith: he obeyed.  He probably did believe that he loved God—he was commanded to in the Law, and Saul took pains, and inflicted pains, to keep and do the Law.

He doesn’t know who is speaking to him.  Who is Jesus?  Friend, teacher, man, Savior, Lord, God.  Jesus is God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity.  If Jesus is God, and if Saul does not know Jesus, then Saul does not know God, not truly, not rightly.  Saul knew something about God but not what mattered most.  Saul loved God because he obeyed God.  Everything hung upon obedience.  As a Pharisee, Saul was part of a very long, ongoing conversation on the right way, the best way, to do the Law: the result was a cumbersome rule book about scouring pots, washing hands, and tithing dill.

Now, Jesus calls Saul.  Everything hung upon obedience.  That’s true.  Jesus hung upon the tree, the cross, in perfect obedience.  He loved because He obeyed.  But that’s wrong, backwards.  Jesus was going to cause Saul to understand and to share what he understood through the intervention of Jesus, through the call of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.  In Saul’s world, obedience came first.  He knew he loved God because he obeyed God.  Jesus takes away Saul’s sight for three days and nights so that, in that time, Saul could be prepared for new sight, true sight, true insight, so that Saul could know God.

Obey God because you love God.  Jesus did not love the Father because Jesus obeyed; Jesus obeyed because he loved the Father.  Love comes first.  Everything hangs upon love.  God is love.  Obedience does not create love.  Love calls forth obedience.  The Law, the Word of God, commands us to love the Lord our God with all we have and are (Dt 6:5).  We cannot do it.  Apart from Jesus, apart from the Spirit sent into the world by the Father, we cannot love God, even though we are commanded to.

Our inability condemns us.  Christ sets us free.  God said he would give us a new heart (Ezek 36:26) and He does.  The Spirit fills us, renews, teaches, and heals us, and encourages us.  The Father sends the Son.  The Father sends the Spirit.  God sends not to condemn—we already are: self-condemned because we cannot and will not love God on our own—the Father sends the Son and the Spirit to save and to bless, to lead us into life, for this is the will of God for His elect, those whom He has called: life, love, blessing, forever.

He called Saul, there on the road, threw him to the ground, took away his sight.  God sends Ananias, not very eager to go to Saul the sworn foe of all disciples of Jesus.  The Lord tells Ananias to go (9:11-12).  To whom might you go?  Who were you before Christ?  What is the most intense prayer you ever prayed?  After three days and nights—in darkness, with neither food nor drink, nothing to sustain life—Saul prays in the depth of need: Lord, give me sight.  Feed my hunger.  Give me water for my thirst.  Let me know You.  Let me know You.

So many in our lives, and where are they are on their spiritual journey?  Maybe they are breathing violent persecution.  Maybe they are in bewilderment of blindness.  Feeling the pangs of hunger.  Maybe they are praying: Let me know You, God; let me know you.  God tells the reluctant disciple to go; Saul is praying.  Go, give him sight.  How am I to give sight, Lord?  Go to that person, pray with that person, pray over that person in the Spirit that will go with you and be with you; lay hands upon that one in the power of the Holy Spirit and sight will come because I will be there, and I give sight: apart from me all are blind.

The disciple, who obeys because he loves, goes to the one who had come to arrest him and drag him away in chains.  He placed his hands upon Saul, calls him Brother—Brother!—and tells him “the Lord has sent me [. . . .] so that you might see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (9:17).  Here are the acts of the apostles: called, sent, empowered to provide sight and open lives to the Spirit who is already there.  Saul was already praying.  Ananias was part of God’s answer to Saul’s heartbroken, humble prayer: Let me know You, Lord; let me know You.

And Paul saw, and he stood, he rose, he was baptized, he ate, and strength came to him.  That’s our story!  That’s my story!  The Father, in the Son through the Spirit, opens our eyes after our time without light, true light, without true food or true drink: he opens our eyes; he lifts us up and we rise.  He washes us, and we know we are His by the Spirit.  He gives us food and drink: we are fed, our thirst satisfied.  Strength comes to us.

God then sent Paul out to proclaim the very words Saul had set out to silence: Jesus is the Son of God (9:20).  We rejoice together in those words: we exult, we are lifted, we are held in the love of God.  Out there, those words can get us in danger, and they can rescue from danger.  We obey because we love.  We love because love came to us.  Set before us today is Christ’s offering of love, life, and blessing, forever.  Receive this assurance of grace.  Then take it to those out there, thrown down, blind, starving, perishing for lack of the life-giving Word.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.