This morning I woke up in a 2nd floor hotel room in the middle of Thessaloniki, Greece. There was a cool breeze flowing in the open doors of the balcony, and the light was shining in on my bed. This was no normal Sunday.
I got up quickly and got ready to leave the town of Thessaloniki and get ready for church. We had made a new friend in the hotel desk clerk, George, and he was going to take us to church. This morning I was going to a Greek Orthodox service, something I’ve never experienced. Not only was the experience going to be spectacular, the place was extremely significant. The church Tauna, Casey, and I were visiting this morning was built upon the place where Paul preached to the Thessalonians. The church wasn’t standing when he was there, but it wasn’t built long afterwards. We were truly excited for our worship service.
George said he would meet us at the bus stop up the road, and he had even marked it on our map, at 8:30 AM. We decided to go ahead and drive our rent-a-car to the bustop, so it would be waiting, and meet up with George. We had the hardest time driving to this bus stop. Not only that, parking in Greece is a nightmare. We made it to the intersection just as our clocks read 8:30. But there was no George. Perhaps he had come and left when we weren’t there…. Maybe our communication was wrong and the had actually been different… What had happened to cause this problem we didn’t know. What should be done?
Like most things on this little journey so far, we put it in the Lord’s hands. We really wanted to go to church, any church at this point. So we got back in the car and drove aimlessly to the point on our map where this church was supposed to be. You’d think that this would be easy. We had a map. Our destination was marked. The car was roaring and ready to go. What’s the big deal you ask?
Driving anywhere in Greece is problematic, but specifially in the city. The streets are more narrow than the tiny cars. The number of people with cars outweighs the number of parking spots 10 to 1, and the street names are carefully hidden on the corner of only half the buildings. There was no direct route to this tiny cross on the map. Only crisscrossing tiny white lines. I have to admit, I didn’t want to bother with it.
But we pressed on. With map in hand, Tauna directed me down what seemed to be a good route to the church. An ancient Byzantine wall divides the old city in half and we were driving up the wrong side of it. The idea behind a barrier like this is to keep things out… and that’s exactly what it did to us
. We couldn’t get through to the other half of the city where this church was. So for a half hour we backtracked through a barrage and maze of oneway streets and oncoming traffic. Finally we get to the top of the hill, on a road running parallel with the wall, and there’s a parking spot. I pulled in, ready to give up.
We didn’t think we were to far from this church, but we were still lost as to which direction it even laid in. We took off to the right and asked a lady. She pointed further down the road, unable to communicate anything else. We looked to the left and there was a building, old. Tauna said, “Let’s just go in here and rest and look around.” We walked in and praise the Lord, we walked right into the courtyard of the church! This was exactly where we had been trying to come, and we had parked right out the front door. God is directing our steps every day. There isn’t a moment where we don’t see His hand taking us where we need to be. It’s like being a lost little sheep and He’s our shepherd…but I guess that analogy has been used once or twice before.
Obviously we were a little late for church, but we peered inside to find ancient artwork depticting the apostles and lots of candles. The priest was chanting scripture and the people sat reverently in their seats. There wasn’t an empty seat, so we admired from the outside. We walked around the grounds, and took in the fact that we were standing at another significant Biblical place. A tour group of Americans came to the church during the service. They were on a paid tour to go to all the places Paul went. I laughed as I thought how we were doing that same thing, just unoffically, and on our own. Our tour guide was God, and He was doing a great job of getting us where we needed to be.
Afterwards, our friend George came out of the service, and found us. We had apparantly been standing only a short distance apart on the street earlier, but never saw one another. He took us inside as the church cleared out, and into a small corner devoted to the apostle Paul and his work in Thessaloniki. It was cool because the building, though not there at the time, was old and seemed to fit anyway. Potmarks in the building paintings on the stone walls were evidence of the Turkish invasions. The Muslims had raided the church and chisled out the artwork.
As I sat and read Thessalonians, I thought about Paul and his work. He was so excited about the church in that city. They had actually caught the message He had told them. They were trying so hard to follow after Jesus. I wonder what he would have though if he had seen this church this morning, on the exact spot where he had once preached. While there was a reverence most American churches miss in their services, there was quite simply no heart in it at all. While I enjoyed the experience, for the most part, the service seemed dry and dead. So many churches, all over the world, all across America – they are dead. What would Paul have said to them? What would have been in his letter to all of those churches, our churches? I pray for the church, the universal church, that we would once again see the power that comes in knowing Christ. I pray that we surrender our lives and live the adventure God has called us all to. What a difference it would make if we’d just wake up. If we would realize we have the power to raise the church from the dead. The Holy Spirit can surely change lives like in Acts if we’d only call on Him to do so. The places were real. The people were real. The power was real.
Those are my thoughts from this morning. This afternoon we traveled across what would have been the Egnatian Way to Kavala, or ancient Neopolis. There are lots of Byzantine ruins here, even a castle. But tomorrow we launch out to the small site of ancient Phillipi, just a few miles north of here. I’m stoked about going there more than anywhere else. More to come on that later. God bless from Greece!
