Sharing a Water Pipe, a Leather Fashion Show, and a Outdoor Concert in Dutch? THIS is Ephesus?

If you would have asked me what I was going to do last week Friday when I awoke (again at a few minutes before 5 AM, thanks to our friendly neighbourhood Muezzin!), I never in a million years would have guessed this one.
We were staying in Selcuk, a sleepy town other than the bustle of some tourism, just 3 kilometres from Ancient Ephesus. Our tour operator, Adem, had hooked us up with a great tour guide, Yesim, who was a lecturer in University on Turkish history. Her job for the day was to be the tour guide for the 13-or-so of us as we traipsed our way through the ruins of Ancient Ephesus and four other spots of significance – Meryemana House (the house locals believe the Virgin Mary lived in at the end of her life), the Ephesus Museum (where the statuary, coins and other small artifacts from Ephesus are house), and the ruins of the ancient Temple of Artemis. Carol and I headed out, umbrellas and cameras in hand, for an adventure-filled day.
Our first stop was Meryemana house, and with no disrespect, it was a bit of a let-down. First, the sheer volume of tour buses was overwhelming. Dozens of 45-seat buses filed, honked, and nudged their way around the cramped hillside parking lot, jockeying for position to let their passengers out. Dozens of buses, we came to realize, means 100’s or even 1000’s of tourists. This was entirely different from our tour of Philippi where we were the fourth car in the parking lot. The homo-sapic mass, marched ant-like to the tiny stone entry-way to a small cottage, filled with silent candle-holding, camera-hiding devotees. After exiting the little cottage, overly adorned with all-things-religious, the crowd snaked around to a fountain of ‘holy water’ and a wall of ‘prayers’ left behind by the hopeful hundreds.

Next stop was Ancient Ephesus. In its day, Ephesus was a sea-port of 250,000, third largest city of the Roman Empire behind Rome and Antioch. It had been the major port for all of Asia Minor and the center of religious life for the incredibly influential Artemis/Diana cult. With the silting in of the Cayser River, Ephesus now sits six miles inland; with the collapse of religious interest in the Artemis cult, the temple fell to ruins. Today, no-one LIVES in Ephesus, but each year over 1,000,000 tourists flock there for a two-hour visit. The tour was spectacular. An incredible amount has been unearthed and reconstructed and restored, and with the swarms of tourists around us, it felt like a bustling city. We saw baths, temples, marketplaces, prytaneions (where they burned offerings), and hordes of inscriptions and carvings. We saw a library loom 30 feet into the sky, inscriptions of Caesar Augustus (yes, the one of Luke 2 fame!) over arch-ways, and streets of marble, warn down from centuries of footsteps. It occurred to me that the footsteps of Paul himself had been a part of wearing down those steps. He had been here for nearly three years 2000 year ago. He had preached in the “hall of tyrannus” for 18 months or so, and eventually preached right in the main theatre. Going to the very spot he had preached from proved to be a highlight in unexpected ways.
When Paul came and preached to the Ephesians, the Holy Spirit was deep at work, changing the hearts of thousands and turning them from idols to follow and serve the living Christ. In turning from their idols, the effect on the economy was noticed, such that the silversmiths, headed by Demetrius, began a riot to oust the Apostle. With one voice, they cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” There is a scene in Acts 19, where the theatre again comes into play as the crowd of 25,000 seize some of Paul’s travelling companions and drags them into the theatre. To think that I was visiting this same place was incredible. But then, something even more personally memorable occurred.
When I was a boy, I loved math, geometry, shapes. Entering the theatre on Friday, I was fascinated that this 25,000 seat ancient stone edifice had perfect acoustics and was determined to find its “sweet spot.” Tracing an imaginary line from one side stair to the other, and another equally imaginary line from the center stair and an arch behind the stage, I calculated which of the marble stones in the floor of the stage was likely the ‘sweet spot’ from which a coin drop or voice could be heard from the very top row, what they call at the ACC, ‘the nosebleeds.’ Carol willingly climbed the theatre steps and when she was at the top, I asked in a quiet voice, “Can you hear me?” to which she shouted back, barely audible to me, “perfectly!” As I stood, contemplating the moment, wondering what Paul had said, wondering what I should say, a group of heavily accented men to my right were singing, “Glory, glory, hallelujah, the saints go marching in.” As they finished their song, they began talking to each other in Dutch. Then it hit me, I could sing the only song I know in Dutch, and when I do, maybe these guys will join along and Carol won’t kill me for singing a solo . So, I suggested it, and before they responded, I started singing. As we lustily belted out the words, a crowd gathered, filing into the seats atop. When we ended minutes later (yes, we sang the WHOLE song!) there was a rousing applause. Glory to God indeed! Who could have guessed it? That my parents could immigrate to Canada from Holland, then have their son head off to school in the United States to come back to Canada, pastor a church who support him in a trip to Ephesus where he leads a group of Dutch tourists in singing the only song he knows in Dutch. If God has days where he simply laughs at what his kids are up to, I’m guessing he at least got a chuckle out of this one.

(that’s me in the “Maranatha Church” t-shirt with the hat and glasses, standing on the ‘sweet spot’)
After touring the ruins of Ephesus, we went to the museum to see the statuary – ten foot statues of Artemis found buried near the Prytaneion, statues of Hermes, Zeus, Hercules, and Aphrodite. All impressive as art forms and artifacts, but hardly worthy of worship. We were simultaneously impressed and saddened as we thought about how many people in Paul’s day were not convinced to turn from false gods and put their trust in Christ. If only there had been more people filled with the passion of an encounter with Christ and empowered by the Spirit and compelled by a calling to follow the great co-mission. If only there were more in Paul’s day; if only there were more in ours.
After lunch, Yesim invited us to go with her to a local leather artisan. This was tour-code for “If you come with me to this vendor, and buy a leather coat, I will get a cut of the profit.” When we got to the leather shop, we were given glasses of apple tea and whisked into a room with a stage and runway for models to come and show us the leather. It was interesting to see the many different types of leather coats and pants and fun when, at the end of the fashion show, one of the male models invited Carol to come up and model some leather jackets for us. She was a great sport and had fun with it but we escaped without buying any of the $600 leather coats.

Our final stop of the guided tour for the day was the Ancient Ruins of the Artemis Temple. This was actually in the city of Selcuk. In the days of Paul, Artemis (aka Diana, goddess of fertility) was revered as the giver of life and was the reason Paul was run out of Ephesus. It was something to go to the ruins of Artemis and see that it was nothing more than a meadow with rocks in it. In the background, a little higher up, is the IsaBey Mosque. We had been by the Mosque earlier in the day and bought a souvenir of Mary and Jesus from a vendor in the wall there. The vendor, a Muslim, was selling souvenirs to Buddhists (little Buddhas), Christians (Madonna/Child), and even of Diana/Artemis, but nothing particularly Muslim. I wondered if the general thought amoung Muslims in Turkey toward Christianity and Buddhism weren’t the same as our thoughts about Diana/Artemis, that it was a failed historic movement with no contemporary relevance or power. Back to the ruins of Artemis, as I looked at the ruins, and up a bit to the IsaBey Mosque, IT caught my eye. The highest mount in the city, a fortress, walls built in the middle ages to stop the attacks on the Monastery of St. John the Theologian. Built by Emperor Justinian around 450 AD, the monastery was built in the memory of St. John, the writer of Revelation who it is locally believed came to Ephesus/Selcuk at the end of his life.

The tour day ended. We thanked Yesim for her wonderful guidance throughout the day, stopped at a corner store to buy some Efes (Ephesus Beer) to cool off after a hot day, and then sat down to review the day. In the evening, we went out for dinner to an outdoor patio, but not before a lovely New Zeeland couple invited us to share their water pipe with them. While it looked conspicuously like some illicit bong pipe, it was really harmless and we were glad to be invited to share it with them and meet yet another kindly pair of fellow travellers.
Ephesus. While the fashion show, the water pipe, the local beer, the Muslim marketeer, and the Maryemana prayer wall all stick in my mind, the overwhelming gift of God I received that day was the privilege of sharing in praise with a group of Dutch tourists in the Ephesian theater. Ere zij God! Glory to God indeed!

The Grandest Creation-Guided Worship Experience I Ever Attended

A few of you who have been reading between the lines of my blog know that I have been doing some reflecting (with the help of Calgary CRC church-planter John Van Sloten's book The Day Metallica Came to Church) on the reality of God speaking to us through two books - the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation.  Well, the other day we 'read' a passage from the Book of Creation and nearly fell off our seats.

First, by way of Scripture, Revelation 3, God is warning Laodicea, one of the seven churches of Asia Minor, that they have been 'lukewarm' and God is ready to spit (actually the Greek is translatable as 'vomit' so it is no minor annoyance).  Now, in our culture, we think of lukewarm as 'halfway' or 'not quite passionate about.'   But God isn't ready to spit, like some locker-room coach about the Laodiceans lukewarmness just because he wants them to heat it up a notch, he actually says, "I wish you were one or the other - hot or cold!"  What God is saying is that it does them no good to be middle ground, they need to make a choice on how they live out their faith.  And Laodicea, and the town that it was, knew what it was to be neither hot or cold.

Laodicea was halfway between Colossae (famous for their cool refreshing springs) and the hot springs of Hierapolis.  Now, I have preached on this, more than once.  The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary does a great (and pictoral!) job of laying this out.  This past Thursday, I had the incredible privilege of seeing the warm springs of Hierapolis and getting an overwhelming sense of what God was saying to Laodicea.

We took a bus from Selcuk, just outside Ephesus, Turkey, beginning around 9am.  On the bus, we met a wonderful couple from Calgary, Dave and LoriLynn, and their friends Eric and Erna who warmly welcomed us into their friendship for the day.  Carol and I remarked about that if we lived in the same town, we would certainly be friends.  Dave and LoriLynn told us about their faith and their church and their desire to know God at a deeper level.  Since I was just finishing a book by a Calgary CRC church-planter, I recommended his church and book to them.  You see, Dave and LoriLynn are photographers, and one of the things VanSloten does well is connect with people who are trying to connect with God on any level, particularly through arts and culture.  As I listened to Dave talk about light in photography and how he and his photography friends could be mesmerized by a simply garbage can because of the way the light might be hitting it, I knew that Dave had allowed God to train his sight in a way that I hadn't even considered.  So I turned it into a prayer, and asked God to show me something of what I wouldn't naturally see on my own.

 After nearly three hours on the bus, we were in the incredible little town of Pamukkale, which is in fact, Hierapolis.  Actually, its not so much the town that is incredible as much as what the town looks up at:  the "Cotton Castle."

An entire mountainside COVERED with calcified pools created by the springs of warm calcium-rich water which flows from the top of the mountain.  Originally, Hierapolis was at the top of the mountain and a stroll through the ruins of the old town is the first part of the tour, but the overwhelming highlight is seeing and experiencing the hot pools.  Where you see me standing ankle deep is our first encounter with the pools.  Our new photographer friends were having a heyday with their cameras, especially, I think, because the cloud cover provided a certain kind of light.  Carol and I just started wading around, feeling odd and awed that our feet were encountering warm water up on this mountain and that it was all naturally occurring.

After some time in these shallower pools, we toured more of the ruins and then saw the hot baths - again all naturally occurring - that we could swim in for 20 Euro per person.  We opted to watch, but when the opportunity to take part in a second locally occurring natural phenomenon -- Garra Rufa fish -- we didn't hold back.  These fish, which only live in naturally occurring hot water springs in Turkey, are little suckers.  They are naturally predisposed to eat the dead skin of people.  For just 15 Euro for both Carol and I, we had the opportunity to put our feet in a large Garra Rufa tank while the fish took a ten-minute snack of all the dead skin on our feet and ankles.

(my legs aren't really that red, it's just the way the flash and water react, I'm sure Dave would have taken a better picture :))

When the fish are biting, biting your ankles that is, you have some time to think.  God is incredible to have made both these phenomena - the Garra Rufa fish and the Cotton Castle - the micro and the macro, and put them together.

After our fish trip, we headed back to the cotton castle, this time to experience it more fully and hang out in some of the deeper pools.  Here are some pictures, but believe me they don't do it justice.

And somewhere around when I was watching and listening - it occurred to me.  This was a worship service.
All the traditional markers:  a sense of preparation as park staff made certain we removed our shoes before entering;  a sense of awe as people were mostly respectfully silent while others adventured; there were people of every trible, tongue, nation and languge present.  All ages were represented.  People were caught up in the beauty of  the place.  The was a reverential awe and nearly the only sound was that of laughter and excitement.  There was even a moment of "is that allowed in here (church)" when a dog was running through the place.

Scripture, in Revelation, describes heaven as a place of awe and wonder.  A place where every tribe, nation, people and language will be in wonder together.  That there would be no temple because God himself would be there.  And, that there would be a river running through it.

The pictures again don't do it justice, but if you could imagine this gush of hot water coming out of the top of the mountain and creating this, you'd  have something of the picture.  It was truly incredible.

I've had cool water from a spring before and it is refreshing, and also of God.  But on this day, I came to understand a little more about what God was saying to the Laodiceans.  They knew about cool springs (like Colossae) just like you and I do.  And they lived in the shadow of the Cotton Castle white hills of Pamukkale, or Hierapolis or "Holy City".  They knew that that the cold springs from below and the hot springs from above were both gifts from God.  And they were simply being urged to make sure that -- hot or cold -- their deeds were lined up with what God was doing in the world.

Another great reminder for us today.

A Call to Prayer

What a day of travel!
Shuttle, ferry, walk, bus, taxi, customs, ferry, customs, taxi -- and now, rather than being in the very religious Orthodox Christian island of Patmos, we are now in the very religious Muslim city of Selcuk, Turkey, just 3 km from the ruins of Ancient Ephesus which we will see on Friday after seeing Hierapolis tomorrow.
On our first ferry today, we met a Christian couple from Texas, Lutherans, Tommy and Kit Kendall, in their 60's -- a delightful couple, or as a Texan might pronounce it - deliiiiiiiightful - or something liiiiike thaaaaat.
Tommy and Kit had begun the day resigned to staying over on the island of Samos for two nights and not having the time or where-with-all to figure out how to make Ephesus work.  We convinced them that with a little bit of help from us, they could make it work.  We shared our guide books, told them they could come with us to Selcuk, and they convinced each other that this last-minute change of plans was a good one.
And then, from Akti to Agonthanassi, from Pithagorio to Vathi, from Kusadasi to Selcuk, we stuck together.  We got to know each other a bit, and there was something nice about taking our first steps in a Muslim country with fellow Christians.
Before we got on our last ferry today, we stopped for a bite to eat (ok, Carol and I had a bite to eat and they each had a bottle of Mythos, (Greek for 'Budweiser').  Before we ate, we prayed.  Carol and I are in the habit of praying before meals, so we just prayed.
Maybe you are in the habit of praying before meals, and when you awake, and when you go to bed, and maybe at some point during your day.  I hope so, its a good habit.
The Turkish have a habit of praying.  The town we are in -- Selcuk -- like any other town in any Muslim country, has a Mosque from which the very public and very loud call to pray goes out.  At midday, midafternoon,  sundown, two hours past sundown and again at sunrise, or as it was this morning 4:49 am!, the silence of the sleepy town is broken by the muezzin or town crier, who sings out to the town from the minaret of the mosque, aided of course by a very powerful amplifier and speakers, this morning turned up on high.
Lasting nearly five minutes, the muezzin's 'song' is that God is great and that Mohammed is his prophet.  For those who don't know much about Islam, while they believe in much of what our Bible says, they would suggest that Jesus was merely a prophet, superceded by Mohammed.
There is something to be said for the regularity and discipline of hearing a public call to prayer.  Since I don't understand Arabic (the language of Islam and the call to prayer, even though everyone in town speaks Turkish), I didn't understand the call to prayer.  Looking it up on-line, I saw that it was a simple declaration of Islam (God is great and Mohammed is his prophet) with a summons (hasten to prayer, hasten to success).
Getting up to go to the bathroom, I looked out our hotel window, Minaret right across the street, but off in the distance, a fortress, lit up, on  a hill -- the Basillica on a hill, to St. John.  You see, the local belief is that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, died in Ephesus, and so in pre-Muslim history, this town had a very high devotion to Christianity.  So I stood at the window and thought.
And here's what came to me:  While the Mosque was dark and loud, the Christian symbol was quietly lit.  In a place where the ominous call to prayer first felt threatening it now became an occasion for me, a Christian, to hasten to my prayer and give thanks that even in this dark loud place, God -- the God of whom Jesus is his Son, the Light who shines in the darkness -- is here!

Patmos Rest - the second of two posts today on Patmos

Patmos Rest

On Sunday night we had to make a decision:  take the Monday morning ferry to Samos to eventually find our way to Turkey, take the Tuesday ferry to Rhodes to eventually find our way to Turkey, or wait until Wednesday and take a ferry to Samos, then Kusadasi, Turkey near Ephesus.  Although we had already been on Patmos two days, technically, it had felt like we had just arrived. 

To be fair, on Saturday morning at 3:15 when we arrived, we headed straight off to bed and spent most of Saturday in a sleep-deprived stupor.  Sunday, a day of rest, was packed – a Greek Orthodox morning service at 8am, a trip to the mountain-top monastery, a stop at the Cave of the Revelation, a long mountain-side hike, a swim, more touring of the island and by the time night was falling, we were lacking the kind of rest one expects one would get in a place like Patmos.  So we elected to stay a few more days and with the help of Dimitris, the hotel manager, who was willing to give us a deal on our room, the decision was made to stay until the Wednesday morning ferry, after which our schedule would again be packed. 

Before getting on to tell you about our Patmos rest, I need to describe to you our experience of Patmos religion.  I wish I could tell you they were the same thing, especially since I am, according to Revenue Canada, a ‘minister of religion.’   The religion of Patmos, without equivocation, is Greek Orthodox.  The nice thing about Greek Orthodox is that they know they do things right, which is of course what ortho-dox means, ‘right doing.’   Just like the Sadducees of Jesus day (Sadducee comes from the Hebrew word, Tsadique or ‘righteous’), the Greek Orthodox are easy to pick out.

 For our Sunday morning service, we arrived at the church a few minutes before eight and were whisked upstairs to a gallery where we could stand, apart, and watch but not participate.  I wanted to tell them I was an insider, a Christian, one of them, and should sit with them, but I learned later that Greek Orthodox here do not see those who call themselves Christian (Protestants, Catholics, even other Eastern Orthodox) as ‘one of them’ but rather that they are the ‘first among equals.’   What was immediately apparent about the service was the smell, constantly being waved around was the incense, plumes of smoke jetting and wafting around the small sanctuary.  At the front of the church sat two old men (in fact, other than us and some students also sequestered to the viewing area, the youngest in the church was likely at least ten years older than us).  The two men at the front sang the liturgy, constantly.  I recognized the same core truths in some familiar Greek words – Christou (Christ), Kurios (Lord), Thanatos (death) and Anastasis (Resurrection!), but beyond the words, the feel of the place, the inhospitability of the congregants, and the veil of religion behind which the Story, OUR STORY, was hidden, made me feel like a foreigner in a strange land. 

And yet, like Steve at BritMac in Philippi said of another place, “God is here.”  There is something about Patmos that is rejuvenating.  I ran into a couple of Scottish ladies (I mistook them for Irish but they forgave me) who told me they came here every year for ‘spiritual but not religious renewal.’ 

So while the local Greek Orthodox church seemed to hide the mystery of God behind religious costumes, and the Cave of the Revelation seemed to confuse the mystery by adding to it, Carol and I sought to connect with God in his most obvious ‘other book’ as the Belgic Confession reminds us Creation is. 

The first step was to rent a motorcycle, ok, a Scooter.  The next, to get a map.  And the third, to make a plan.  SEE as much of Patmos as we can in two days, driving every mountain road and hairpin turn and visiting every beach and even climbing some of its mountains.  We scampered around and collected rocks and took pictures and left footprints and were truly amazed. 

Here are some of the pictures of God’s second book of revelation (again I reference the Belgic Confession).    A hunchbacked farmer parking his ATV at the end of the lane after a hard days work and walking to his home; a Scuba diver, appearing out of nowhere on Lambi Beach while we collected stones; a senior citizen taking a stroll, completely nude, and holding a small towel in front when we passed by out of deference to the lady I was with; a string of mountains and bays and incredible inclined roads and smooth stones and bushes and flowers and rocks of every shape, size and colour.  We saw children happily ending their school day at 1:30 (we hardly dared tell them it was Victoria Day back home and that our children were off for the day); a conversation with an old fisherman about the legendary location where John is said to have baptized the first converts on the island.  We took pictures with the camera too, but we are sure none of them actually capture what we saw or felt.  You be the judges. 

As I reflect on our Sunday day of rest and the days of rest that followed, I am blessed and baffled by the ‘revelation’ that the times of most intense spiritual joy and wonder were not those moments when we were in the confines of the church building subjected to the wafts of incense, but rather when we were out in His Sanctuary, as the songs says, “the heavens declare the glory of God…day after day they pour forth speech.”  We are glad, because in these days, we have heard Him speaking.  And THAT’s a revelation!  

A Revelation - the first of two posts today on Patmos

Patmos. 

The first time I heard the word, I was a child. 

From the opening verses of Revelation.  John, exiled to the island of Patmos for his faith.    Now, we are here.  Today, the island of approximately 3000 people, stretching at most 20 kilometres long, is a collection of goat farms, fishing villages, and tourism, almost all centered around ‘the mountain’, or in Greek, the Chora, with its Monastery of St. John. 

The island’s geography is incredible.  In the time of John, it was a place of exile, a prison, like Riker’s Island.  Mostly rocky ground, none of it level, the island is virtually uninhabitable.  Lush fields for farming are few and tiny.  Roads and paths are twisted, steep and precarious.  

From the central port town of Skala, the ocean (Agean Sea) is visible on both sides.  Mountains, from neighboring islands and Patmos itself, are visible in every direction.  The protected ports and bays around the island provide innumerable beaches, most of them publicly available yet private in ambience.  As we toured the island on our scooter, the mountain-top, hair-pin, guardrail-less turns first had our guts wrench and then our spirits soar as the turns opened us to yet-more-incredible vistas.  We walked a mountain path to a private sandy beach for a brief swim.  Along the path we could look down on the ocean below or up to scampering mountain goats above.  I remember speaking to the store owner in Philippi about a religious site near him and he said to me, “God is there, you can just feel it.”  There is something of the same sensation here in Patmos.  It is not hard to believe that John received the Revelation from God here. 

The islands history is equally incredible.  Shortly after John received the Revelation, early Christian communities built a basilica here, a church, at the top of the Chora.  Over the 6^th to 9^th centuries, Muslim raids all but destroyed the Christian presence here.  Then, around the turn of the millennium (1000), a Christian Turk, Eastern Orthodox, Revered Father Christodoulos (Greek for ‘Servant of Christ) received permission from the Byzantine Emporer Alexios I Komnenos to have possession of the island for the purpose of preserving the site where John received the Revelation and to house a monastery here. This monastery was built at the top of the Chora, in the same place a great Basilica once stood.   Over the centuries, the island has passed between the hands of the Greek Christians and the Ottomans and in the last century has been ‘owned’ by the Italians and Germans but since the end of the Second World War has been back in the hands of the Greeks. 

The history of the island is something of a backdrop for the history of the site of the Revelation.  John, the writer of Revelation, is believed to have received the Revelation from God while staying in a cave about half-way up the Chora.  This cave has been well-preserved and revered by the Greek Orthodox church over the years and they oversee the conduct of visitors to the cave to this day.  They have also added some of their own tradition to this Unesco World Heritage site.  Among the things they ‘know’ and are able to pass on are: 

1.       The exact location of the cave.  They have gone through the trouble of building a monastery above it with a place to sell religious artifacts, so they have some investment in sticking to their story. 

2.       The place where John lay his head when resting, a bit of a hole in the rock, as if he had laid his head on rock to sleep.   I would have thought that John, living into his nineties, would have taken better care of his body than that, but the hole in the rock, now ringed in silver, does have a religious rightness to it.

3.       The hand-hold in the rock which John used when he wanted to get up from his sleep.  Also ringed in silver, it becomes another occasion to locate the wonder of John’s revelatory moments.

4.       A three-part crack in the rock in the ceiling of the cave.  The Greek Orthodox are able to determine that this three-part crack is obviously representative of the Trinity and was therefore obviously caused when God spoke to John. 

In addition, they have hung seven oil-lamps just like in John’s vision (although the day we were there they accidentally had eight hanging) as well as a icon-rich wall baracading the local monk’s working quarters from the public viewing area.  I wondered why, since they had added the oil-lamps , they they hadn’t included some of the more marketable elements from John’s revelation – I would have thought that four horsemen or a dragon or a lake of fire would really bring the pilgrims in. 

Ok, you’ve caught me being a little cynical.  Which, when I do, causes me to be a little reflective.  I wondered what would have happened if the Christian Reformed Church would have been put in charge of this important artifact.  What are the ways that we would have dressed it up or embellished the story?  Would we have survived the temptation to dress it up and sell a few more trinkets?  Or was I reading the local Greek Orthodox folk all wrong, that all of this addition to the story was simply borne of their sincere devotion, perhaps aided by further revelation from God? 

It’s hard to say, and for the purpose of me helping the people of Maranatha communicate our faith to the people of Cambridge, an irrelevant question. 

Or is it?

Maybe this is my revelation on Patmos.  When we add to the story, we pollute it, make it trite or unbelievable.  But when we communicate the truth of Christ’s love and sacrifice without trying to dress it up, then those who hear, aided by the Spirit, will have a revelation of their own.  

to Patmos

The other day as Carol and I were speeding along the Via Egnatia (Ignatia Odos) at 130 kmh, we talked about how much different our experience is from the apostle Paul's.  Our trip from Philippi to Thessalonica, for example, took a little more than an hour; his would have taken more than a week, maybe two.  There are many glaring differences between his experience and ours, not the least of which was that while we looked from the outside at his prison cell, he looked from the inside out.
So, as we sped along the Aegean Sea the other night on our way to Patmos (yes, I know, Paul wasn't recorded as having gone to Patmos, it is our strategic stop on the way to Turkey to see Ephesus), it struck me how easy our experience was.
First, price:  43 Euro per person for an eight-hour, 158 nautical mile trip.  Now, 43 euro is a little less than $60.00, for most adults, less than half a day's pay.  We have it pretty easy.
Second, options:  the Blue Star II is capable of carrying a few thousand people and hundreds of cars and trucks.    The top floors of the boat have cabins with beds, showers, and sitting areas.  There is even a pool up there for when people want to jump in the water without going overboard.
The main floor, where most of the people travel, has a fancy restaurant seating a few hundred up front, a bar seating a few hundred more at the back, and a 'Flo-Cafe' (Greek for 'Tim Horton's') in the middle.  In addition, there are sections of small theater areas, where the 'Air Seats' are about the size of a First Class Airplane seat but with way more leg room.
Because the ferry ride began at 7pm and ended at 3:15am, we chose the air seats, wanting comfort for rest and not wanting to shell out hundreds of dollars for a cabin.
So, we were having a pretty easy time of it.  We read, we journaled, we had dinner and snacked and slept.  It wasn't bad at all.

But there were also hundreds of other people.

Sometimes, especially the Greek men, they were loud, disrupting sleep and being generally annoying.
Sometimes, like a large group of Korean seniors, they were imposing their culture (like the exactness of sitting in the seat assigned to you, though this is not the Greek custom), and thereby raising the ire of the already loud Greek men, who, though there was no common language to communicate, were raising their voices so that while they were being misunderstood, they could at least be heard.  I could identify with both groups.
Sometimes, like the group of Free Methodist Christian College Students from Michigan, they were dazed, sleepy, and intermittently excited and irritable, like the pleasant young man who sat in front of Carol talking non-stop while she tried to sleep.

I wonder if Paul had to deal with so many people?  Maybe we had it rougher on that count.

By midnight, most folks were asleep, and aside from the sound of the door behind our chairs opening and closing so that smokers could go outside and do what needed to be done, it was pretty quiet.

Around 2:45 am, things started to get exciting.  We were all eager to get off the boat and to our hotels.  During the trip, I learned that both the group of 40 or so Koreans and the 30 or so students were all staying in the same hotel as us.  Envisioning the look on Carol's face if we were to have to stand in line behind these folks at the hotel, I resolved that Carol and I would be, nearly, the first ones off the boat.  Apparently, so had a few dozen surly Greek women.

Let's just say that getting off the boat was neither a demonstration of my greatest patience nor anyone elses.  We were all eager, all tired, and many of us, especially first-timers to the island, more than a little disoriented.

When I think that Paul had neither Flo-Cafe, nor Air Seats, nor booked hotel room, but rather, was shipwrecked, then I am reminded that while I attempt to walk in his footsteps, I am not able to walk in his shoes.  You see, he looked around at all those people with a burning desire to tell them about Christ, and not just to get out of his way so he could get to his hotel.

Still, so much to learn.  

Christos, Appollos, and the Cabbie

Christos, the friendly manager of the Aristoteles Hotel, greeted Carol and me the other  morning.  With a bright smile on his plump face, he announced that he had spoken to Appollo, in Ancient Greek thought the god of the Sun, and made arrangements for us to have a wonderful day.  Christos smiled.  I was pretty sure he was kidding.  Certainly this man who shared the same name as Jesus knew better than to put his trust in the likes of Zeus and Poseidon and Apollo.  Surely he whose hotel, the Aristoteles was near the corner of Socrates and Constantine, knew that belief in the gods of Myth was a dead-end.

He tipped his hat, saying he had Apollo’s cell-phone number (ok, he was kidding all along).  In his humour, he hearkened back to a better day when the gods actually were in charge and things were glorious, but ‘now that the politicians are in charge, things are falling apart.’  Those who know me, and the Gospel, know I could write a month of sermons out of that little conversation.  But I bit my tongue.  Well, not literally, but I didn’t speak. 

Things were falling apart.  As we walked Vathis Square, Omonia Square, and down to the Plaka, it was apparent that things were less than their Creational best, when God walked with people in the cool of the day.  The Wailin Jennys have a song, “Waiting for a Saviour”, a cry against the pain-makers and heart-breakers, which includes the line:  “To the one’s you’ve left behind, were they not worth your time?”   Sometimes we refer to the times of Paul in Athens as “Bible times” and I make the mental mistake of filing it as the time that God was present, close to the time when the Greater Christos walked the soil.   But that creates a disconnect, as if just because things aren’t at their Eden-optimum that God is on vacation, like He’s left behind the Vathians, Omonians, and lower ‘c’ Christoses of this world. 

And then, spark-like, He shows up in the unlikeliest of places. 

No surprise, really.  After crawling into a manger, then up on a cross, then into a tomb, and finally to the light of Eternal Day, it was no big deal for him to drive a cab from the armpit of Athens to her port, Pireaus.  I never did get our cabbie’s name, so for fun, let’s call him Alexander, he was great. 

Carol and I asked the cabbie why we had seen the police so infrequently and when we did, only in large groups.  Alexander’s response, “It is safer for them.”  This comment began a 20-minute conversation (with the meter running, Alexander was no dummy) about life in Greece, particularly Athens, with the debt crisis, the overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants, the soaring inflation AND tax rates, and the recent murder of an ethnic Greek by a Pakistani immigrant and how things were getting bad, so bad that the police themselves would travel in packs just to ensure their own safety (I’m glad my mom is reading this AFTER we have left Athens).    Alex (we were getting familiar now) said he had lived in Athens all his life, this was his home.  And then, as hopeless as Athens socio-economic-spiritual crisis appeared, Alex expressed hope, however sheepishly:  “Maybe, if the government insists on justice and does something, things can get better.”   

Whenever we express hope against unreasonable odds, we are leaning forward in faith.  The Wailin’ Jennys have another song, “Heaven When We’re Home”  where the lyrics are hymnically crooned, “there must be something better than this…still living one day at a time and doing the best I can….and when we find what we’re looking for, we’ll drop these bags and search no more, ‘cause it’s gonna feel like heaven when we’re home.” 

I think Alex, if he were a singer, might sing along.