Disclaimer - The Father's Song belongs to Matt Redman. Saul belongs to God. The Bible belongs to numerous writers, and also God. I'm not making any money out of this. :-)
A/N - I had the sudden urge to write a song fic including The Father's Song, and applying it to Acts 9:17-19, with a little help from further writings of Paul/Saul, somehow gave me a challenge and an insight I had never thought of before. I mean, how did it feel?
A Love Song from Heaven
Zephaniah 3:17 - The Lord your God is with you, He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
All I knew for certain was, I was in big trouble.
Having spent the past year persecuting, imprisoning and even killing the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, called Christ, it came as a frightening surprise when I learned that the stories were true. Jesus is Lord - and I had been killing his followers.
I had been a Pharisee. I could be one no longer. Believing myself to be God's servant, I had committed dreadful crimes. And now I realised I was a sinner, and with that, I was blind, now in every sense.
I remember Stephen's face, as they killed him. He looked peaceful. That face appeared in nightmares afterwards. It had been as if he had known something we could not fathom, as if he had something we could not strip from him.
As I knelt in that room, my whole world was dark. I had rubbed and scratched my eyes but for no amount of pain would a single beam of light appear. I prayed, fasted, and begged God for mercy. All I could hope for would be that the blindness would be my only punishment. It would be merciful, considering my crimes. How could I ask God for anything, now? My close-mindedness, my hypocrisy, my wickedness - I deserved to be dead.
I woke from exhausted sleep on the third day of my blindness. I found myself again on my knees, begging God again to show me what great penance I must do to somehow atone myself.
I did not hear him come in - I did not stop in my prayers until I felt the hand on my shoulder.
"Brother Saul..."
"Who's that?" I asked, weakly. It could have been someone trying to give me food again. What use was it?
"My name is Ananias. The Lord Jesus sent me here, so that you can see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
I hardly dared believe his words - but I did not have to. I felt something fall from my eyes, vivid colour rushing in, so unexpectedly that the sight of everything seemed fresh and new. A man stood before me. "Thank you."
"Thank Jesus," Ananias said. He helped me to my feet, and although I felt sick and hungry, and somewhat bewildered, a curious sense of elation was rising up within me. Was I being rewarded? But that was ridiculous. Judas, the master of the house, had the servants prepare us a meal, and Ananias and I talked.
I noticed something different about him. He was animated, enthused, so unlike the religious men of our time. Of course, I was one of them. We delighted in misery. But he had a strength, a quality I could not place. And absurd as it felt, instead of the experience of new sight wearing off as quickly as you might suspect, I still looked at all about me with wonder. A strange happiness was welling up inside me. I had listened to the word 'Jesus' with contempt. But for some reason, now that name sounded like music.
I have heard so many songs
Listened to a thousand tongues
But there is one that sounds above them all
"Please," I said, begging him like a small child wanting to hear a story. "Tell me about Jesus - I never understood. I want to know."
He smiled brightly, and I could not help smiling back. An immense feeling of freedom was bursting from my heart. I wanted to dance. Sing. I wasn't good at either but at that moment I didn't care. And yet the one thing I wanted more than that was to simply hear more about Jesus.
"Jesus is the Messiah - God's Chosen One. He was crucified, by Pontius Pilate."
Bewilderment again. You cannot kill God's Chosen One surely?
"But how? Why?"
"It was a sacrifice - remember the Passover lamb? That was the sign. You know we cannot have eternal life unless we are cleansed of all we have done wrong?"
I nodded. "An impossible task - God is perfect and we are not. Even with sacrificial lambs - it never feels quite..."
"I know. It never seems certain. God still seems far away. But remember the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'He was put to death; he was punished for the sins of my people.' Jesus Christ became our lamb - he was separated from God when he was crucified. The temple curtain tore open - no more separation. He was sinless - he was in nature God - and yet he died for us. We can be free from sin - we can live with God."
I would say it seemed too good to be true, but it didn't - tears ran down my face in pure joy. I could not doubt that it was true. Despite everything, God had loved us that much - he had loved me enough to give me a place in his kingdom. I, who did not deserve to ever to even see the Temple again.
The Father's song, the Father's love,
You sang it over me
And for eternity it's written on my heart.
"I believe," I said. "Jesus saved me."
Ananias reflected my grin. "Yes."
I was baptised a little while later, knowing my world was turning upside down and feeling all the more elated by it. God's love! It was incomprehensible. I had not known - I had never been told - the passion he had for me. And now everything that had gone before - my position as a respected Pharisee, my learning, my associates, my status - it was like dust. Compared to the freedom I had found in Christ Jesus, it was nothing at all.
Heaven's perfect melody
The Creator's symphony
You are singing over me
The Father's song
And now - I would go. I would tell everyone. Once I had been dead, now I was alive. I had been saved by Jesus, the Son of God.
Heaven's perfect mystery
The King of Love has sent for me
And now you're singing over me
The Father's song