I was enveloped by the darkness as I fell to the ground. The light of the one who stood before me penetrated the scales in front of my eyes. Nevertheless, I could hear and recognise the voice who said, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I asked who the voice belonged to. But I knew. We had never met but the rich timbrel of his voice matched the love and devotion that I had seen in the lives of his followers and I had made it my life’s mission to extinguish. Almost imperceptibly, I hear my voice saying, ‘who are you, Lord’. I did not need to hear the answer. I knew it was the crucified one from Nazareth. I knew all there was to know about him, and yet here he was before me, clearly human and clearly of God. My whole life crumbling before me.

How could this one who opposed so much of what I cherish be the one? Maybe I had misunderstood what he had said. More of my thought process crumbled away. But he had touched the unclean, spent time with sinners, and laughed, wept and cried with those who would rather party than attend synagogue. With each question my mind raised, it became clearer that I was wrong.
Like the sound of many waters, the voice replied, ‘I am Jesus., who you are persecuting. Go into the city and wait’. I opened my eyes to the darkness, and was led like an infant by those accompanying me. They had seen nothing, but heard the words spoken to me. No one was in doubt that I had seen a vision like the prophets before me. I was taken to the place where I was lodging, the house of a man called Judas.

My companions left me, and I was alone with my thoughts, and wave after wave of guilt. In particular, I could see the face of Stephen, and heard his words once again. Words that had made me angry now made me fall on my knees. He had seen heaven opened and his Jesus standing alongside the glory of God. I had seen it too. I wept at the thought of what I had done, and what I might have done.
I lost track of time as I waited. For three days, like Jonah in the belly of the whale and of course like the Nazarene is a stranger’s tomb, I sat, and sometimes paced in the darkness. Chinks of light from the Scriptures fell into place. How could my mind have been so veiled to the fact that the Messiah must suffer and die?

On the third day, I heard the door open and was aware of the presence of someone else. ‘Brother Saul’, a voice said, ‘the Lord Jesus has sent me’. He placed his hands on my head. I was filled with light, and I could see once more. The reality was I had begun to see three days before. My brother and I went to water and I was baptised in the name of Jesus. I was alive once again.