Easter 3C (Acts 9:1-20)

​As Jesus enters into the suffering of all in his cry to God on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, he once again identifies himself with the persecuted in Saul’s hearing of his voice, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Jesus’ suffering is not just his own but his companionship with those who suffer. Among those suffering, he is present. No one is abandoned alone. Jesus is there with them and is risen with them. This is the hope that we hold onto and is the very reason we suffer with them. Not only when two or three are gathered in his name, is Jesus present, but also wherever there is suffering. 

In today’s lesson, Jesus’ ministry of joining those who suffer, this revelation of the resurrection continues. The voice of the risen Christ is the voice of the persecuted. The risen Christ’s identification with the ones belonging to the Way of love that Saul imprisons and threatens to murder or may have murdered shatters the belief system that Saul zealously fights for. The love of the resurrection never walks away from the most vulnerable but endures, suffers, and rises together. This way of love is not an ideology that serves and protects those within an existing system. It is beyond any form of ideology, be it a theology constructed by most respectable scholars, in the name of love for the sake of love of others. What’s greater than love that can sacrifice itself for the life of the other? So, that love can even embrace Saul the persecutor. 

Now, let’s think of ourselves as persecutors of ourselves. One part of ourselves is the persecutor while the other part becomes the persecuted. There’s an inner split whenever we become judgmental of ourselves. We might have inner parts of ourselves that we don’t like. It can be our past action that is still causing stress, regret, and suffering. It can be internal such as personality traits we wish to fix. It can also be external like physical features we wish to have or rid of. How we handle these varies. We would ignore and bury it or despise and hate it. Either way, it doesn’t seem to give us the best outcome. Unresolved issues or unhealed scars either leak or hurt others.

The risen Christ joins in the persecuted side of ourselves. It is hard to acknowledge when we simply say to ourselves not to hurt ourselves, but when we hear that through the voice of others, we would  stop with compassion and empathy. Imagine someone telling us not to hurt them. We’ll immediately stop even if we wouldn’t necessarily hurt them whatsoever. What if the risen Christ speaks on behalf of us, to us, “Why are you persecuting me?” As Christ identifies with our own wound and is one with us through our hurt and pain, we would stop hurting ourselves. After all, self-compassion wouldn’t be so difficult as long as we stop hating ourselves. 

We might not necessarily feel like we’re harming ourselves. While this may be true for many of us, I hope, our world isn’t so. We see more violence destroying the lives of our neighbors. The more one hates oneself, the stronger the impulse to hurt others. Unhealed wounds bear the fruit of harming and damaging others. This is one of the reasons why Jesus says the kingdom of God that is the source of true happiness is within, not without. When our inner life is content within, we desire to expand this inner life of peace, joy, and hope to the outer. But if our inner world is consumed with dissatisfaction, hurt, and rage, our outer world would be filled with them as well. 

So, we listen to the voice of the risen Christ who voices the persecuted in ourselves. Losing our sight is to stop judging and look deeply beneath unhealed wounds that have been buried and unacknowledged. To face our hidden wounds is like Saul’s experience of losing sight, no drinking and eating for three days. This spiritual wilderness ends as we are joined by a community. Our hurt is mostly inflicted by others and we inflict it more by blaming ourselves. Paradoxically, this hurt caused by people is healed by different people who are also wounded. Thus, we all become wounded healers. In this communion of wounded healers, the Holy Spirit fills us and we rise with Christ again and again, which is expressed in the sacrament of baptism. 

Let’s courageously get on the road to Damascus. The resurrection of Christ has never stopped but is here with us to mend the wound of the world through mending of our own.