19 - The Foretaste

Outside the little fence in front of Ananias’ house stood a desert dweller, his face burned black by the sun, his naked body half covered by a ragged sheet. Thick tangles of hair fell over his face, and his thin legs seemed barely able to support him. He tapped on the low gate of woven palm branches with the long bamboo stick he carried. No one passing by recognized him, and neither did the master of the house when he stuck his head through the door opening.

When Ananias opened the door the stranger collapsed into his arms. It was only when Ananias looked more closely at the pear shaped head that he knew the apparition to be Saul. Ananias at once grew pale with fear, knowing that the Ethnarch’s men had never given up their search for Saul even after three years. They still poked around now and then to see if he’d come back.

Quickly Ananias called to his wife and they carried Saul into the tiny, low-roofed house and laid him on the floor. After refreshing him with a cup of milk, which he barely kept down, they covered him with skins so that any neighbor who might happen to look in wouldn’t see him.

Saul came to a while later and immediately started talking about Jesus, who, he said, was the Son of God.

“We’ll talk about this when you get your strength back,” they said to him. “For now, just rest, and be at peace.”

That evening Ananias went to the synagogue for evening prayer, so as not to arouse any curiosity about his absence. But he said nothing to anyone about his visitor.

They kept Saul hidden for several weeks, nourishing him with milk and vegetables. Ananias treated Saul’s black, cracked skin with unguents, and carefully increased the amount of goat’s milk and ground vegetables he fed him each day.

As soon as he could walk, Saul begged them to take him to the synagogue for Sabbath services.

“I have great news for the House of Israel,” he said. “The spirit was with me in the desert and I saw Jacob’s ladder. I understand the dream now.”

Ananias didn’t understand him, and assumed he was still under delirium.

“You can’t go to the synagogue, or show your face anywhere. Some of the men who came with you to arrest us are still here, and they’ve never really stopped looking for you. Most of the people have pretty much forgotten what happened back then, but if they see you or hear you preaching, they’ll remember all right, and surely kill you.”

Nothing can happen to me,” answered Saul, tranquilly. Remember how the lord told you that he’d chosen me as an instrument to carry his word to the nations and to Israel?”

“Yes, that is what he told me,” answered Ananias.

“So how can anything happen to me before the word of the lord is fulfilled? Who can kill me if I’m the lord’s instrument?”

Ananias looked at Saul in astonishment, for Saul’s face was radiant.

“If your faith is that strong, then go in that power and spirit and fulfill what the spirit has said to you,” answered Ananias. And may God go with you.”

* * * * *

Because of Saul’s unshakeable faith in his mission, not only did Ananias agree that he should appear in the synagogue, but he went ahead of time to negotiate for him. He persuaded the head of the synagogue to allow a young rabbi who had just returned from Mount Sinai and was often visited by the spirit, to preach the next Sabbath. Ananias knew that the situation was fraught with danger. He thought that Saul’s sermon might embitter some of the members of the new sect, and that they wouldn't take his conversion seriously. But he was also under Saul’s spell, so to speak, and on the Sabbath he accompanied him to the synagogue.

The great synagogue of Damascus was not a single building. The Jewish community had grown so rapidly, mostly through the addition of Gentile converts, that they couldn’t build new buildings fast enough. As the congregation grew, the synagogue authorities were forced to add new buildings in a hurry with whatever materials were at hand, whether stone, wood or baked clay. The result was that the original synagogue looked like a mother hen sitting on a brood of chicks.

As usual, the synagogue was jammed with worshippers on this day, who overflowed from the main building into all the other buildings. Some sat so far away that they couldn’t hear the speakers, and so would have to watch the beadles’ signals so they’d know when to give the “Amen” response.

After the reading of the Pentateuch, the head of the synagogue got up and said, “A young rabbi is with us today, who just returned from Mount Sinai, where he fasted and sought the secrets of God’s word. He comes today to give us some words of comfort. Let him now speak as the spirit leads him.”

Saul came forward, wrapped in a prayer shawl.

Most of the congregation knew that a man had come from the High Priest three years earlier with a mission, and had then disappeared. But only a few close friends of Ananias knew what he looked like. When the people saw the pallid, sun-scorched young man, with his high pear-shaped head, their instincts told them that something unusual was about to happen. There was total silence.

The preacher didn’t start his sermon in the usual manner, with a verse from the Pentateuch. Instead he started talking about himself.

“I am a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and I sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel. At that time the jealousy of God rose in me against those who praised Jesus of Nazareth as the King Messiah.”

An astonished buzzing ran through the crowd.

“Saul.”
“It’s Saul, the persecutor.”
“It’s the man who tied up the faithful and dragged them to the slaughter.”
“Shh! Let’s hear what he has to say.”

The young man addressed them in simplicity. He described his reason for coming to Damascus the first time, about his vision of Jesus, his blindness, and his flight. He told them of his wandering in the wilderness, and his meditations at Sinai. He explained his vision of Jacob’s ladder, which he knew to be Jesus, and how this caused him to understand that this Jesus was the Son of God the Father, Who’d sent him for salvation to the world.

A certain tension began to be felt in the room as Saul’s voice became alive with exaltation. He said that though the lord Messiah had been crucified in weakness, he was alive in the power of God. He was the only one who gave meaning and justification to our life, for he was the redemption, the fulfillment of creation, the promise that God had given to the prophets. And he would come to resurrect the dead.

This in itself created no new excitement, for there were many believers in the synagogue, and they’d often heard sermons on Jesus. Many believed that Jesus died for their sins and would soon return on the clouds of heaven. What did create a storm was when Saul drew from this that Jesus of Nazareth was not only Messiah, but that he was the Son of God. This was definitely new. This man went on to say that just as there could be nothing apart from God, so too there could be nothing apart from Jesus, for he was the personification of redemption, the purpose of creation. Therefore, Jesus was not merely a god. He was a second Authority.

Who does this man think he is? Just yesterday he was persecuting believers with all his might, and now he stands there preaching things unheard of in Israel. Not only were the pious Jews offended, but even the brows of the faithful were knit in bewilderment and discontent. This could not be allowed to go on.

No fists were raised, and no hands were laid on the preacher as would have happened in Jerusalem. But there was obvious dismay and discontent.

The head of the synagogue stood up, signaled for silence, and declared, “With the permission and authority of the synagogue court and of the other elders, I bid Saul of Tarsus to be silent, and I withdraw from him the privilege of preaching in the synagogue.”

As the congregation dispersed that morning, their heads were lowered in great sadness. They felt like they’d been present at the worship of the golden calf.

* * * * *

It was time for Saul to leave. He wouldn’t stop talking about his views on Messiah to anyone who would listen. He couldn’t preach in the synagogue, and the elders were even considering whether or not he should be put to the lash, but they didn’t want to draw any more attention to the matter than there already was. So Saul went to little groups or individuals, scholars or ignorant. The congregation was split down the middle for and against him with Jews and Gentiles on both sides.

Ananias was worried, not only about Saul’s safety, but the safety of the small congregation as well. Up till now, no one made any distinction between the believing Jews and the non-believing Jews; they were all part of the same congregation. But Saul was here, there and everywhere. He’d suddenly appear in a little group in the synagogue or the marketplace. Buyers, sellers, weavers, camel drivers, it didn’t matter. He’d argue with anyone. Ananias kept warning Saul about the arguments that kept breaking out, but Saul had only one answer. He belonged to the lord, and as long as the lord needed him here in this life, no evil could come to him. And if he were killed, it would just be proof that the lord needed him in the other life.

Rumors of the disturbances soon reached the ears of the governor of the city. He too remembered what had happened three years earlier, and he ordered that Saul be found and arrested.

But when the guards went out to find him, he was suddenly nowhere to be found. They looked for him everywhere they could possibly think of among the believers and the Jews. But Saul no longer came to the synagogue and he wasn’t seen among the believers or in the marketplace. No one seemed to know who had warned him, but apparently someone had. All anyone knew was that he had vanished.

Now it happened that one of Saul’s former lieutenants, Zebulun, was in Damascus at that time. Saul was so well known to him that no disguise would get by him. Zebulun found other men familiar to Saul and they stationed themselves at the gates of the city. Anyone leaving Damascus was closely scrutinized, sometimes even stripped. In fact, they were so determined to find him that they even examined the women. They were certain that if he attempted to leave, they would catch him.


On its eastern side, the wall of Damascus ran through a little olive grove. At the base of the wall inside the city, there were niches, hollows, and arches where the poor oil-pressers, vegetable dealers and camel drivers lived. The wheels of these poor oil-pressers were turned by donkey or by a blind slave. Outside the city, the oil mills of the wealthy were run by streams that ran like a network through the woods around Damascus. Small farmers brought their sacks of olives to be ground and pressed.

During the day the place was noisy with braying donkeys, neighing camels, bargaining farmers, and chaffing merchants. During the night silence reigned, and the only signs of human habitation were the modest little oil lamps sending up slender spirals of smoke.

There lived among the oil-pressers a young man named Zechariah. All day long he dragged sacks and baskets of olives to the mill, and loaded cruses and skins of pressed oil onto waiting donkeys. His body and clothing were greasy with oil. The hole where he lived, including the vessels and mattress and everything else was saturated with oil. And among the baskets and cruses, covered with a greasy rag, Saul of Tarsus lay all day.

For the first time in his life Saul felt what he’d made so many others feel. He knew now what it was like to be in danger for the sake of Jesus. He wasn’t afraid. He knew no one had any power over him as long as his mission was unfulfilled. But he now felt what it was like to be the hunted instead of the hunter. The experience both humbled and exalted him.

Under the filthy cover Saul felt he’d achieved the privilege of being persecuted for the “love of God who is in the King Messiah.”

One night two powerful arms lifted him out of his hiding place and placed him in a basket filthy with the thick ooze of olive waste. Zechariah also gave him a cake of bread and a gourd of water to sustain him in the desert. He covered the basket over with leaves, so that it looked like a basket of olives about to be carried to the mill. Carrying this heavy load on his shoulders, he made his way along the wall until he reached a lonely grove. Climbing to the top of the wall, he lowered the basket down on the other side with a rope. He told Saul to carry the basket so that if anyone saw him, he could say he was taking a load of olives to be pressed outside the city.

But Saul met no one on the other side of the wall. He stepped out into the deep blue night, and looked up at the stars he knew so well from the desert.

He turned his footsteps in the direction of Mount Hermon, whose majestic white head, illuminated by the stars, was visible in the night. His destination? Why, Jerusalem, of course!