22 Oct Three Day Wait

Something occurred to me lately. There are a lot of instances in the Bible were people had to wait for three days for something to happen (This is not intended to be an exhaustive list):

• Jonah was in the whale three days (Many see this as foreshadowing Jesus rising after three days).
• Esther had the Jews fast and pray for three days before she approached the king (in a life-threatening move).
• After unwittingly leaving Him behind, it takes three days Mary and Joseph to find 12-year-old Jesus teaching in the temple courts.
• The scatted Apostles wait for three days before Jesus rises from the dead.

I thought of these after a friend reminded me of another three- day wait in the Bible by two men that I’d never given much thought.  It is the three days Saul and Ananias waited for their historic meeting after Jesus appeared to the murderous Pharisee Saul on the road to Damascus.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Saul was a Pharisee who sought and received permission to go to Damascus to persecute, imprison, and perhaps kill Christians. On his way, Jesus appears to Him:

3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” 7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. Acts 9:3-9 (NIV)

We can only imagine what that three-day wait was like for Saul. Jesus tells him that a man named Ananias will heal him, but Saul’s head must have been spinning. He believed “The Way,” the movement that worshiped Jesus, was a threat to his Jewish faith. And he wasn’t wrong. Jesus came to abolish religion and Saul was a leader of the very religion Jesus came to abolish. He was obsessed with abolishing the Jesus movement and would use any methods necessary to achieve that goal. Now, Jesus has called him by name. What was the rest of the walk to Damascus like? Jesus appears to Ananias and tells him that “Saul is praying.” Praying for what? Here are three possibilities:is H

7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

Here are three possibilities: repentance, relief, and revelation.

Repentance: In Acts 26, Luke quotes Saul explaining just how zealous he was in his efforts to wipe out “The Way:”

“I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11 Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities. Acts 26: 9-11 (NIV)

By the time Saul got to Damascus and was healed by Ananias, he was ready to start preaching the gospel. It seems likely that acknowledging his past sins of persecuting believers consumed much of his time on the walk.

Relief: Jesus told Saul that Ananias would remove his blindness. But he likely couldn’t imagine how. If he was going to pray for anything, there is a good chance he would pray for that.

Revelation: Jesus told Ananias Saul was His chosen instrument to spread the Gospel and that He would show Saul how much he would have to suffer for His name. Saul apparently did not get that memo. He had to be praying about what his marching orders would look like.

And what about Ananias? What was his wait like? He knew of Saul’s persecution of believers and expressed fear of him to Jesus. Yet when Saul arrives in Damascus, Ananias greets him with “Brother Saul.” Soon, Saul of Tarsus would be the Apostle Paul, the greatest spreader of the gospel the world has ever known. We can only imagine what his wait was like. But it’s clear that when Saul arrives, Ananias has trusted Jesus that Saul will bring him no harm.

What about you? What do you look like when God shakes up your life and then asks you to wait three days, or three months, or even three years? Saul/Paul and Ananias teach us the Listening to God, trusting Him, and praying during the wait will result in us seeing God’s faithfulness in action. When your wait becomes a weight, I encourage you to think of these two men.

Pastor Jerry Bader