Week 20—Friday Acts 9:3-6
Week 20—FRIDAY
“I AM JESUS WHOM YOU ARE PERSECUTING”
There is one more thought that must be added if we are to see and feel the full impact of “[God] has visited and redeemed his people.” Was it a momentary visitation of thirty-three years, and when it was all over did God say, “Well, that’s that. I’m glad that is all over. Now I can rest in a job well-done. But it is past.” No, the Christian Incarnation is deeper than that. It is a continuing Incarnation.
When Paul was upon the Damascus Road, he heard a voice: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Jesus, after he had gone to heaven was still being persecuted in the persecution of his followers. Whatever fell on them fell on him. So the identification and hence the Incarnation continues, and will continue until the human race is redeemed. At least until all who want to be redeemed are redeemed—the rest perish.
So the Incarnation continues, for Love continues. And Love being love must by its very nature insinuate itself into the sin and sorrow of the loved ones. So while there is no outer cross on Calvary’s hill, there is the inner cross upon the heart of Calvary’s God. For God rules from a cross. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32, KJV). He draws us—he doesn’t drive us. “Isn’t this coercion,” I asked Mahatma Gandhi in jail, “when you fast to make men give up untouchability?” “Yes,” he replied, “the same kind of coercion Jesus exercises upon you from the cross.” It is coercion, but the coercion of Love—we are free to resist it, but Love narrows down the freedom to the point that if we resist it we are bad. And we know we are bad. And we reject ourselves in that choice.
O Blessed Savior and Redeemer, we now see that in sinning we sin not only against impersonal moral law—we sin against Love—the Personal Love of our Redeemer. That makes sin dreadfully sinful. Do save me from sinning. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Every act and attitude I take today to anybody will be an act and attitude toward Jesus.