Ananias and the Door He Was Afraid to Open

For three days the blind man in the house of Judas on Straight Street ate nothing, drank nothing, and prayed. (Straight Street ran across Damascus from one gate to the other, as straight as a ruler.)

Across the city lived a man named Ananias. He loved Jesus, and everyone in Damascus spoke well of him. One day the Lord spoke to him in a vision.

"Ananias!"

"Here I am, Lord."

"Get up and go to Straight Street. At the house of Judas, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying. He has seen a man named Ananias come in and put his hands on him so that he can see again."

Ananias went cold all over. Everyone who loved Jesus knew the name Saul. When Stephen was killed with stones in Jerusalem, Saul had stood there and agreed with every stone. Since then, people who loved Jesus had learned to fear a knock at the door, because it might be Saul come to take them to prison.

"Lord," said Ananias, "I have heard all about this man! He has done terrible things to your people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with letters from the chief priests to tie up everyone who calls on your name!"

Ananias told God all about Saul, as if God might not have heard. (God had heard.)

"Go," the Lord said. "I have chosen this man to carry my name to the nations and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."

So Ananias went, down his own street and along Straight Street past the shops, to the house of Judas. His heart thumped. Behind that door sat the man who had come to arrest him. (Inside, Saul was waiting for him. God had already shown him a man named Ananias coming through that very door.)

He knocked. He went in. On a mat sat a thin, tired man with his eyes wide open, seeing nothing.

Ananias knelt and laid his hands on him. "Brother Saul," he said. "The Lord Jesus, who met you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you can see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."

Brother. Saul had come to tie this man up, and the first thing he heard was a family word.

Right away, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see. He saw a lamp, a window, and the face of Ananias.

"Now, why wait?" said Ananias. "Get up and be baptized!"

Saul was baptized, ate his first meal in three days, and grew strong again. For some days he stayed with the believers in Damascus, the very people he had come to arrest.

Ananias was only the one who knocked. Jesus had started making Saul new days before, out on the road, while Saul lay blind in the dust.

The word "brother" came from Jesus himself. The night Jesus was arrested, his friends ran away and left him. On the third day he rose from the dead, and the message he sent them was, "Go and tell my brothers." The ones who had run were still his family.

Now Saul was family too. Jesus still sends his people to knock on doors they would rather leave shut, and he still calls brother and sister the very people who once fought against him.