When were you saved?

Are you saved?



Our first reading for this Third Sunday of Easter is Luke's story at Acts 9 of Paul’s conversion, “Paul on the Road to Damascus.” If, like art, a bit different each time, Luke has Paul tell essentially the similar story three times in Acts. But it’s Luke’s story, not Paul’s. We have a tradition that Luke travelled with Paul, but that’s only tradition, no documentation or eyewitness of such. I might rather hear it from Paul’s lips, Paul’s own response to the evangelical question “When were you saved?” but Luke is a decent storyteller and has given untold generations of preachers the text for innumerable thousands of sermons.



Especially considering that he’s writing it down for Theophilus maybe half a century later, Luke tells it pretty vivid, memorable. An experience that would have shaken a man’s very being, and conceivable that Luke would have heard Paul tell it dozens of times in their travels together, evenings over supper with new friends in every town. My imagination is going with that. 



Like an old campfire story, “Paul on the Road to Damascus” one would never have tired of hearing. Or telling. And maybe better each time. It may even have been what ignited the perennial question, “Are you saved?”

“Am I saved?! OMG let me tell you!!!” 



Luke rolls his eyes, gets out his iPad to take notes, and pours himself another cup of wine.

DThos+

Third picture is Caravaggio 1601