The arrogant fanatic, on the road to search out and arrest more followers of Jesus, is humbled and amazingly changed by a meeting with Jesus Himself. We can best listen to the convert’s own words: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in Jerusalem. I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any others. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. About noon, as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and head a voice say to me, Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me? I asked, Who are you, Sir? He replied, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. — What shall I do, Sir?, I asked. Get up and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.

[In Damascus, a man named Ananias] came to see me. He said The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.” (Acts 22:3-15). As best we can determine this all took place in the year 35 AD, five years after the resurrection of Jesus, when Saul was in his mid twenties. It was like one of those moments in our lives that we never forget. And Saul, now Paul, never forgot it. About 25 years later he would write to the Christians of Corinth: “Christ died for our sins and rose on the third day. He appeared to the Rock (Cephas /Peter) and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred at the same time, most of who are still living. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared to me, like one born out of the proper time. I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called one, but, by the grace of God, I am what I am. To those who would challenge his authority, he would simple say: “Have I not seen the Lord?” I Cor. 9:1) In other words, like the Twelve and the other apostles, Paul had seen and spoken with Jesus, although he did that with Jesus risen, not before.

Ananias baptized Saul/Paul and, like Jesus after His baptism, Paul goes on a long retreat, not for 40 days but for a few years: “I did not consult any man nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.” The “Arabia” he speaks of is probably not our Saudi Arabia, but rather the Kingdom of Jordan. How much time he spent there we do not know, but three years after he saw and spoke with the Lord on the Damascus Road, he had come back to Damascus, begun witnessing to Christ, and then went to Jerusalem. “After three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with the Rock (Cephas) and stayed with him fifteen days.” Thus the beginning of the great collaboration of those two whose feast we kept on June 29th.