See and eat! Be healed and heal!

 “My thoughts are not your thoughts”

(Acts 9:17-19, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 22, 2012)

17 So Ananias departed and entered the house.

God called Ananias, a devout and respected Jew living in Damascus, to enter the house in that city where Saul of Tarsus, a known persecutor of Christian Jews, was staying. Ananias was a Christian Jew. God allowed Ananias a little push-back, but ultimately he had to do what God was calling him today. Habitual push-back followed by rejection of the clear calling of God is not good for people who want to have close communion with God. We don't need to know everything. But what we do know, we need to do.

So Ananias went where God wanted him to go. That's a very exciting thing. When the God who loves us clearly calls His servants into danger or some costly inconvenience, what awaits us when we arrive at the place of His choosing?

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.”

In this case, a very educated Pharisaac Jew who was at the very beginning of a long road of suffering was there. This man, Saul of Tarsus, was in need, and God had chosen that it would be through the simple touch of the hands of Ananias that He would powerfully heal Saul of the blindness he had experienced over the three days since he had been encountered on the road to Damascus by the ascended Jesus Christ.

God had indirectly instructed Ananias to lay his hands on Saul. He had also prepared Saul for this experience during a time of prayer by giving him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

“I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” Those familiar words from the hymn “Amazing Grace,” are reminiscent of John 9, when a man who was born blind was healed by Jesus. He was questioned by the Pharisees, who were investigating whether Jesus had healed on the Sabbath.

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:24-25)

Later on in the chapter, the Pharisees have words with Jesus.

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. (John 9:39-41)

Saul thought that he saw everything well when he was traveling to Damascus to arrest men like Ananias, but he was very blind. I am not sure what it was that was blinding him so badly, but I do know that the turning point came when he met Jesus and was actually blinded. That was when he first began to see. While he was still blind, he had a true “vision,” an odd word for a blind man... A man that he would have earlier wanted to kill now laid hands on him. Suddenly the divine illustration was over. And Saul was no longer blind spiritually or physically.

Ananias calls him “brother.” We welcome into the family those whom God has brought into the family. And we do what we can to help them according to the Lord's command.

Why did the Lord Jesus send Ananias to Saul. Not only so that Saul would regain his sight. Saul needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we think we know everything, and we trample all over others, justify ourselves, and imagine that we are the best servants of God. With the Holy Spirit, we see the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ as the Jewish Messiah, and we are led to give and forgive; to love even our enemies. We walk in the light as He is in the light.

Sometimes you have to lose something important before you see. The Pharisees were offended by Jesus. They did not see. Saul was once on their side. Now they would hate him, and he would love them by proclaiming to them the Jewish Messiah, and collecting money even from Gentiles for their needs in a famine that would come to Judea in a few years.

18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened.

Which brings us to the topic of food. During the three days after Saul was confronted by the ascended Jesus on the road to Damascus, not only could he not see, he did not eat. After Ananias laid hands on him, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight.

Then he rose and was baptized. He could see Jesus as Messiah by the gift of God. He was cleansed from His sin by the blood of the Lamb and filled with the water of heaven by the Holy Spirit. One Jewish man, Ananias, became a conduit of divine blessing to Saul. Another Man, Jesus of Nazareth, through His own death and resurrection, had become His Lord and King.

What was left to do but eat. It was time to take food and be strengthened. You eat because you have a reason for living. Saul had a reason for living. He would spend the rest of his life suffering for Jesus, and considering it a privilege. If you are going to suffer for Jesus, you need to eat.

We are nurtured and fed by the one who gave His body and blood for us. This passage does not tell us that Saul and Ananias, now brothers in Christ, celebrated the Lord's Supper together. It just says that Saul ate and was strengthened.

Let every strengthening and delicious morsel that God gives you remind you of the food from heaven that came to save you. Receive every meal as a gift of God. And then participate in this meal of the body and blood of the Lord in remembrance of Jesus Christ who is your life.

See and eat. Then give and forgive. And celebrate together.

Jesus saves. He brings enemies together around His table. He gave His body and blood for us. Ananias and Saul were now brothers in Jesus Christ, together as sons of God and bond-servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God's ways are surely above our ways. His thoughts are above our thoughts. Be healed and heal.

1. What was the significance of Ananias entering the house where Saul was staying?

2. How did God use Ananias in Paul's life according to these verses?

3. What happened to Saul?

4. What brought these two men to the point where they would interact with each other in this way?

OT Passage: Isaiah 55:6-9