Persecuting Jesus

“He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’” Acts 9:4
Acts 9 gives us the story of one of the most influential men of the first century church – Paul. Beginning his life as Saul of Tarsus, he was born a Roman citizen and raised as a Pharisee. He took it upon himself to go out and purge the world of this new sect of Jesus-followers, obtaining letters from the high priest at Jerusalem that gave him the authority to take these believers as prisoners (Acts 9:1-2).
Saul honestly thought that he was doing the right thing. Like many other Pharisees, he completely discounted the possibility that Jesus could actually be the promised Messiah. It took a supernatural event for him to discover this.
But let’s also take note of what Jesus says to him: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” Now Saul was probably thinking, I wasn’t persecuting a bright light and a booming voice from heaven. I was finding people who had gone off the rails of traditional Judaism so they might be punished and better educated in what they should be believing. But Jesus says, if you persecute those who believe in Him, you are persecuting Him.
The same is true today. Let’s not pretend that persecution is not a problem. We may not encounter the extremes that these disciples experienced – and indeed many Christians today throughout the world, particularly in Muslim countries, are experiencing. Persecution in Western society tends to take the form of name-calling (‘intolerant’, ‘bigoted’, ‘homophobic’, ‘radical’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘those crazy born-agains’, etc.). We may be looked over for a job promotion, or even be declined a job because of our faith. Christianity is maligned by the media. Whatever form persecution takes, we can take heart in this: Jesus is feeling it too. When we are attacked, He takes it personally.