The Light That Knocked the Hunter Down

There was a man named Saul, and he was a hunter. What he hunted was people.

Saul did not like the people who loved Jesus. He thought they were wrong. He thought they were dangerous. So he went from house to house and dragged them out into the street, mothers and fathers and the frightened ones, and he locked them away in cold dark prisons. All the way down inside himself, he was sure he was doing something good.

Have you ever been so sure you were right, and been so wrong that somebody got hurt? It is a terrible thing to find out. It can make you wonder if you could ever be different.

One morning Saul set out on the road to a city called Damascus. He was breathing hard, like a hunter who smells his catch. There were more people to drag away, more doors to break down.

He did not know that Someone was about to find him.

Then the light came.

Light brighter than the sun poured down out of heaven and washed all around him. Saul fell to the ground. He covered his eyes. And out of the light came a voice.

"Saul. Saul. Why are you hunting me?"

Think of that. Saul had never touched Jesus. Jesus was not there on that road. But when Saul hurt the people Jesus loved, Jesus felt it as if it were happening to him. That is how close he holds his own. Hurt them, and you have hunted him.

Saul was shaking. "Who are you?" he said.

"I am Jesus," said the voice. "The one you have been hunting."

Jesus did not come to that road to punish Saul. He came to rescue him.

The worst enemy, the cruelest hunter, the very last man on earth you would think God would want, and Jesus came down in light and called him by his name. Twice. Gently. The way you call someone you have wanted home for a very long time.

When Saul stood up, he could not see. They had to lead him by the hand into the city, the way you lead a small child. For three days he sat in the dark, blind and trembling, with every bit of his old sureness gone.

Then Jesus sent a kind man named Ananias. Everyone was afraid of Saul, and Ananias was afraid too, but he came anyway. He put his hands on the hunter and called him "Brother." Brother. Something like little scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He could see everything.

He was never the same. The man who locked people up spent the rest of his life telling everyone, everywhere, that Jesus loves them.

If Jesus would climb down out of heaven for Saul, for the very worst one, then there is no one he will not come for. However far a person has run, the Shepherd is already out on that road, chasing the one nobody else would chase.

And he found him. He found the hunter, and made him a brother.

He knows your name too. He has been saying it the way he said Saul's, twice and gently, waiting for you to look up.