Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
As Saul journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9: 3-6)
Christ called the young man, Saul (Acts 7:58), on the carpet, asking Saul (whose name will later be changed to Paul) why he was persecuting Him. The dialogue suggests Saul for all his violent opposition to Christianity (Acts 9:1) somehow didn’t understand what he was doing because he was driven by his own violent passions against some poor defenseless people. Christ confronts Saul with a truth – your passions have driven you to violently persecute some powerless people, but you need to know in persecuting the least of My brothers and sisters, you are persecuting Me, the Lord. Saul seems to instantly recognize this truth. He wasn’t persecuting weak people whom he despised, he was opposing the Lord whom he thought he was serving by being so violently passionate. Paul realized despite all his rigourous Pharisaic religious training, he didn’t know the Lord at all. Saul’s encounter with Christ also helps Saul to see himself and to become self-aware that his actions in the name of the high priest (Acts 9:2) were putting him in opposition to God. Perhaps Saul’s intentions were good, but his passions and zeal had clouded his heart and mind. God shows Saul that the end does not justify the means – you must use godly means to attain a godly goal, you cannot use evil to attain the good. As Saul will write later in his life: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). As our Lord Jesus put it:
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:43-45)
Converts are sometimes noted for their zeal and passion, but they do need to learn from Saul’s own experience, that these can be the very things that prevent one from serving the Lord, especially in the treatment of people you don’t like, or think were obstacles to your own spiritual sojourn, or who don’t share your same beliefs. The Elder Thaddeus of Mt Athos offers some loving advice on being a convert and dealing with non-Orthodox relatives or friends:
In anything that we plan to do we must have one thought and one desire in mind, for this is how God wills it. He wants us all to be of one thought. The Lord prayed for us to be one. And what do we do? We are always divided, even within our family circle. This is not good. We want our own will to be done. I can understand when this happens if the head of the family is an atheist and when the Lord calls to the faith one of the members of his family. But the person whom God has called must act wisely. He must never wage a war in his mind with the rest of the family, for then there will be no progress. In that case, the pious person becomes like an assassin who kills his closest of kin with his thoughts and desires.
It is quite another thing if we become one with the Lord, and the head of the family says, ‘Deny your faith!’ Then such a person cannot be our parent or our neighbor. Then we can say, ‘I cannot deny the Lord; I have become one with Him in my heart. I am His, and His divine life is in me. I cannot renounce the Lord, but you, do as you will.’ And again, we must never think anything hurtful about this person, for even the slightest negative thought disturbs our peace. Our inner peace is disturbed, and our fellow men become hostile. Therefore, even the most fleeting thought that is not founded on love can destroy anything good. (OUR THOUGHTS DETERMINE OUR LIVES, pp 193-194)
Fraternized 