Acts 9:1-22 | Your Story Made Visible
The Third Sunday of Easter | May 4, 2025
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened.
For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
The conversion of Saul is one of the most important events that happened in the church after the resurrection of Jesus. The story is told four different times in the Bible, three times in the book of Acts and once in Galatians – the version we read today is the first and fullest of all of them.
Saul’s conversion is one of the most dramatic stories of the Bible, and it’s easy to get a little jealous. Maybe your conversion story could rival Saul’s, but I think that for most of us, we don’t feel like it was that dramatic. We never saw a light from heaven. We never heard Jesus speak audibly. We were just baptized – most of us as a baby – grew up in the church, and that was that.
But that’s why the time of the early church is so helpful for us to meditate on. Because God did things visibly then in a way that he does not promise to every Christian. But he wants you to know that the same things are happening in your life, too – even though they are hidden. And so the book of Acts is really an incredible book because it makes visible what is happening today.
Just think about Saul. His story begins with his hatred of Christianity. To him, it was a perversion of the Jewish religion, and so he would look for Christians to put in prison or even kill. He used every resource at his disposal to destroy Christianity.
And you might say, “Well I wasn’t that bad before I became a Christian. I wasn’t murdering anybody. I was a nice guy. I did some good things. I just didn’t know about Jesus.”
And in one sense, you’re right. You don’t have to be a Christian to keep your hand from murdering people. You don’t have to be a Christian to help people and live a decent life. We all know people who couldn’t care less about Jesus, and yet they’re genuinely nice people. They do good things.
But here’s the reality: None of these good things actually please God. And so none of them are actually good. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God [Hebrews 11:6]. God is only pleased when you fear, love and trust in him alone. You can feed the hungry, cure cancer, and solve world peace, but if you do it without fearing, loving and trusting God, God doesn’t actually see that as good. Any good thing you do is pleasing to God only because it is done in faith.
Before you were a Christian, you didn’t please God any more than Saul did. The Bible says that all of us, without the grace of God, are enemies of God [Romans 5:10]. It says that people who don’t believe in Jesus are alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds [Colossians 1:21] – just like Saul.
We like to think that we’re more deserving of God’s grace because we don’t murder people like Saul. But the reality is that the root problem is the same. The wicked drama in Saul’s former life just illustrates what every one of us is like without Jesus.
Just like Saul, you don’t deserve anything from God. Not one single work you do, if you held it up before him to judge, could be considered righteous on its own. You don’t become a sinner when you do something really bad. You’re born a sinner. It’s part of who you are.
The Bible describes this as a spiritual blindness. You might say, “I wasn’t ever as spiritually blind as Saul was.” After all, Saul was really messed up. He wasn’t a seeker, he wouldn’t even consider Jesus. It’s easy to think that you’re different – maybe before you became a Christian, you had an open mind, you were able to see who Jesus was, and at some point you accepted him.
But the reality is that because you were born in sin, you were born blind. You were no less blind than Saul. The Bible says that without him, your mind … is hostile to God, … it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God [Romans 8:7-8].
We like to think that we’re more deserving of God’s grace because we were somehow less blind that Saul. We didn’t need Jesus to get in our face like Saul did. But it just isn’t true. We need Jesus to show us just how spiritually blind we are.
That’s why Jesus blinded Saul physically. He wanted to show him that he was spiritually blind.
I find it interesting how God did it. You heard in the reading that when Ananias healed Saul, something like scales fell from his eyes. It makes you wonder what they did with the scales after they fell off. Are they hanging out in somebody’s relic collection? More importantly, if you were a scientist back then, could you have looked at Saul’s eyes and realized that he was blind? Could a doctor have tried to cut out the scales? Would that have cured Saul?
I think even if a doctor could have done surgery to restore Saul’s sight, it would have permanently disabled him. Because then he would be tempted to think it was just a fluke, just a disease, just a who-knows-what-was-covering-my eyes-but-my-doctor-fixed-it. And that would be a problem, because Jesus put those scales there in order to show Saul that he was spiritually blind. He didn’t want Saul to fix it. They were there to show him the truth.
Sometimes he gives scales in our lives to show us that we too are born blind. Broken arms, pain, loved ones dying – Even as Christians, God sends these things to remind us who we are without him. To fix your broken arm without remembering that you are dust and that Jesus has saved you is to cut out the scales and forget they were there. To get over your loved one’s death without repenting of your sin is to look past the scales and pretend they’re not there. God puts these things in our lives to show us who we are without him. He wants us to remember what he has done for us so that we don’t get complacent. He wants us to see how much we must suffer for the sake of Jesus. Saul was blind for three days, the same number of days Jesus was in the tomb. God was showing him and us we must join Jesus in his suffering. That is the cost of seeing the light.
Saul didn’t want to cut out his scales. From the moment he saw Jesus, God gave him faith – faith to know that he was blind. Faith to fear, love and trust the God who blinded him. We know this because Saul spent the time while he was blind fasting and praying, and God heard his prayer. God wasn’t waiting for him to act. He simply appeared and gave faith.1
And that is exactly what Jesus did for you. He didn’t wait for you to act. The Bible says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us [Romans 5:8]. While you were wandering in your blindness, content in your rebellion, unwilling to fear, love and trust God, Jesus died for you. He counted the cost and paid the price. The Bible says that He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world [1 John 2:2].
And he still doesn’t wait for you to act. He just shows up. He reveals himself in his word. And that is how you believe.
You were saved by God’s grace just like Saul was. It’s not that you were somehow less sinful. It’s not that you were somehow less blind. That you earned something before God or did something to make him favor you. You were saved because God showed up to you. He revealed himself. He created your faith in you.
Now, for many of us, there is a big difference here between us and Saul. Because for many of us, we were raised in Christian families, and we don’t ever remember a time not being a Christian. That means that for us, God created faith very early on. The Bible is clear that even many infants believe simply when their mothers bring them God’s word. Even from the womb [Psalm 22:10], from before … birth [Psalm 71:6], babies can trust in God.2 Just as John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb when he heard Mary’s word, so can unborn babies believe in Jesus when they hear his word. I’m sure that’s how many of us got faith.
If that were at all in question, God gives baptism. In baptism, Jesus draws near to the infant as well. He promises to grant faith and the forgiveness of sins. It is more certain than just trusting that the infant heard and believed, because it’s physical. You can know that if the water has hit the head, God has come. He has given rebirth. He has filled you with the Holy Spirit. He has washed away your sins [Acts 22:16]. He has saved you [1 Peter 3:21, Titus 3:5].
In your baptism, you had a Damascus Road moment. You met Jesus as he came to you to deliver his grace and forgiveness. It wasn’t a visible ray of light like Saul’s experience. But just as Jesus came to Saul and converted him, so Jesus came to you and converted you.
And so that you might know it, just look at how God dealt with Saul. He didn’t give him another vision and revelation. He sent him Ananias. Ananias gave Saul God’s word. Ananias laid hands on him. I assume it was Ananias who baptized him, if not it was somebody else from the church.
Why? Everything has been so dramatic up to this point, God, why don’t you give his sight back with some miraculous dramatic event? It’s because God wants to point Saul to where he normally works: In the church. In holy Baptism. Through the hands of a pastor. Through his word.3
There are still dramatic conversion stories today. But the reality is that every conversion, every time someone becomes a Christian, it is just as miraculous as when Saul did. That’s what I want you to take away today. Every time a person hears God’s word and believes it, there is a dramatic defeat of the devil. Every time someone is baptized, a child of God is born anew. You can’t see it in the same way Saul did. But it’s just as real.
By All Your Saints in Warfare – LSB 517 sts. 1, 12, 3
By all Your saints in warfare,
For all Your saints at rest,
Your holy name, O Jesus,
Forevermore be blest!
For You have won the battle
That they might wear the crown;
And now they shine in glory
Reflected from Your throne.
Praise for the light from heaven
And for the voice of awe;
Praise for the glorious vision
The persecutor saw.
O Lord, for Paul’s conversion,
We bless Your name today;
Come shine within our darkness,
And guide us on our way.
Then let us praise the Father
And worship God the Son
And sing to God the Spirit,
Eternal Three in One,
Till all the ransomed number
Fall down before the throne,
Ascribing pow’r and glory
And praise to God alone.
It was a conversion in the truest sense of the word, because Saul was passive. You convert a truck into a motor home. You convert your car into a diesel generator. It’s something that happens from the outside. It’s not your will, work. Saul doesn’t spend three days blind deciding if he now wants to follow Jesus. He spends it praying to the new God he now knows.
Psalm 71 uses the term “leaned.”
Now after this, Saul did go into Arabia for awhile [Galatians 1:17], where he probably learned directly from Jesus. That’s because God chose him specifically to be an apostle, to give eyewitness testimony of the risen Jesus. God did not choose you to do that. But he did choose you to be a Christian right where he has put you. He has made you a father or mother, a son or daughter, an employer or an employee, a citizen, a servant, a customer. You are a chosen instrument of God to carry out his work in your life, wherever he has put you.