Acts 14.8-18
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral on Thanksgiving Sunday 21st November 2021
Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.
Lystra was a Roman city, or colony, in what today is south east Turkey. It is seventeen years since Jesus was executed and came alive again. The year is AD 47. Two missionaries visit the town and heal a paraplegic. It causes a stir and leads to an amusing misunderstanding. The locals think they must be gods, and prepare to offer them sacrifice. Because of the language problem it takes the missionaries a while to wake up to what is going on.
What we see next is the collision of two different understandings of the world: the worldview of paganism, and that of Judaism—and now Christianity. Six centuries later it became the understanding also of Islam. Pagans believe in many gods. Different parts of the world and different aspects of life are controlled by different gods. There is a god of love and a god of war, a god of the harvest, and a god of the ocean. These gods are not particularly interested in humans—certainly not in their happiness—but you can easily offend them. In this system there is no difficulty accounting for evil; you probably upset one of the gods and the way to sort that out is to sacrifice. Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe there is one God who created the universe and everything in it; it is a worldview that makes sense of the harmony and rationality of the universe. The main alternative today is the idea that there is no God at all: the belief of Atheism and Secular Materialism. Lawrence Krauss debating in the Perth Town Hall joked, “People used to believe in many gods. Then they believed in one God. Now we believe in no God.” But there is an infinite difference between one and none, and a joke doesn’t settle it. One God explains the existence, harmony, and laws of the universe; no God explains nothing.
One of the practical issues involved in this is whom you thank. We wanted to have a Thanksgiving Sunday because we believe our blessings come from God—a personal God who cares about our happiness. But many Australians have stopped believing in God, or they don’t think he is important. So, whom do they thank? The answer seems to be that many don’t feel thankful at all any more; they are forever belly-aching about everything that is wrong. Those who do feel thankful give their praise to Nature, which they spell with a capital N and call “Mother Nature.” Our missionaries would have been just as horrified at this as they were of the idol-worship of their day. It amounts to worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. This is the essence of idolatry.
If you ask atheists why they don’t believe in God, they will tell you either that there is no evidence—there is plenty—or that there is too much suffering: if God were real he would not allow it. This is a good argument, because there is a great amount of evil and suffering. If you’ve been caught up in it yourself, it has probably caused you to doubt. Baby Cleo has been found; that is part of 2021’s good news. It has reinforced some people’s faith, but often it doesn’t turn out so well, and some will ask, “Why would God have allowed her to be taken at all?”
Anyway, Paul’s answer to the idol-worshippers—and also to the atheists of today— is that God has given himself a witness: he has given rains and fruitful seasons, “doing good … and satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” But how is that an argument for people who believe in many gods? Aren’t they generous too? Some are, but mostly they are not. Thailand is mostly Buddhist, but the majority also worship various gods—and fear them. My friend asked a Thai woman, “Do you have a good god?” “Of course,” she said, “but we don’t worship him; he wouldn’t hurt us.”
Paul is saying that the amount of good in the world shows it is in the hands of a good God. It’s worth thinking about this argument today. Of course, he’s perfectly aware that there is a lot of evil and suffering—from start to finish the Bible is about God and how he will finally deal with evil—so Paul must be saying there is more good than bad. God likes to give us good things—even to people who don’t believe in him.
This contradicts the atheist. He thinks there is too much suffering, and that rules God out. Early in 1978 a Cambridge student invited me to his room to explain Christianity to his friends. One student asked, “How could a good God allow suffering?” Later that year I was in southern Sudan. For 20 years most of the population had been hiding in the bush. I spoke to a group of students whose college had been bombed. One of them wanted to know how to answer a woman in his village who asked him, “How can a good God allow suffering?” It is a cry that goes up around the world. But Paul says there is a lot more good than bad. Is that true?
Scott Peck was an American psychiatrist. In his book, The Road Less Travelled, he says the thing that brought him from not believing in God to Christianity was the huge predominance of grace in the world. He notes how most of us carry in us bacteria of serious illnesses like meningitis. But very few get sick. If everything evolved by accident, there should be much less good.
For example, why should we have evolved to be pain-free? There is no reason why natural selection would eliminate chronic pain. But in our natural state we are hardly conscious of our bodies. When we feel pain we know something is wrong, and can trace the cause, and are often able to fix it. Even if we can’t, we know it is not normal; there is an explanation and probably is a cure, even if we don’t know it. Pain and unhappiness are a result of disorder. The body in its normal state seems like it was designed for happiness. This only makes sense if God is real. There is a witness, you see—many witnesses in fact—that he is real and good. Another example is the school playground. If you go past a school at play time, there will be an awful racket. But if you see a child on its own and crying, you know something is wrong. Fix it up, and he will be happy again. Happiness is the default state of children.
Evil and suffering are horribly real, and need to be explained, but they are not the original design. They are invaders, spoilers of an otherwise good creation. This is the Bible’s teaching and it is also how we experience things. Evolution says suffering is normal, and will increase until we are all extinct. But in fact there is much more good than evil, and therefore we should believe in God, and thank him, and want to know him. That is the first thing we learn from our reading.
But the people of Lystra were also given a remarkable miracle. A paraplegic—there were plenty of them back then—is walking around. In parts of the world you still see lots of cripples. Lorraine and I were in India in 1986. I got to preach in an orphanage to 300 girls. I asked them what they thought would most frighten a foreigner coming to India for the first time. They looked at each other. “The beggars,” I said. You should have heard the laughter; how stupid that anyone would fear a beggar! But paraplegics sliding across the footpath begging for money scared me. How I would have loved to be able to heal them.
Jeremiah was a polio victim from central Africa. He came to study at my college in Cape Town. He hopped around with the help of a pole cut out of the bush. One foot faced backwards and his leg dangled uselessly. One of his classmates took him to an orthopaedic surgeon. The doctor said he could fix him up, and the student agreed to pay. I took him into Groote Schuur Hospital for his preop. The professor—a big man—lifted him onto a table, like he was a piece of meat, and explained to the room full of students how he would operate to turn the leg around and straighten it. One of the students said, “It won’t work.” The professor was not used to being contradicted. “Why not?” he said. “Because the muscles have wasted away and will never grow back.” They discussed it and all agreed, and the operation was off.
The chap Paul and Barnabas met in Lystra had been lame from birth. His muscles were beyond recovery even with today’s medicine. So, it was an unmistakable miracle when he stood up and walked, and the locals got very excited. They figured Paul and Barnabas must be gods.
There is an ancient myth about that part of the world. Virgil tells how two of the gods, Zeus and Hermes, disguised themselves as humans and visited the area looking for hospitality. They got the cold-shoulder from everyone except a poor couple, who took them in and shared what they had. Their shack was miraculously transformed into a temple of Zeus, and the unfriendly town sank into a swamp. The locals weren’t going to make that mistake again, so the priest of Zeus came out to offer them sacrifices.
Now you have that collision of worldviews I spoke of. The community has just experienced a great good, and wants to acknowledge it. But their benefactors are saying they must give up their idolatrous beliefs and worship “the living and true God who made the world and everything in it.” It caused a division: some believed, some did not, and eventually it turned violent.
Paul did many miracles in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had done hundreds more. Even a non-Christian historian thinks he must have, because he can’t see why anyone followed him if it wasn’t for the miracles. He thinks he was a sorcerer, which was how the Jews explained him. But there is a difference between what Jesus did and what ancient sorcerers were said to do: Jesus never did anything to harm anyone—all his miracles were to help and heal. Sorcerers were feared—like sanghomas today in Africa. People believe if you have powers, you will use them to hurt the people who upset you. This is another reason why Christians believe that God is good. When he came into the world as a human being, he only did good.
There is another difference: Jesus’ miracles were meaningful. He said he had come on a mission to establish the kingdom of God. That meant getting rid of all the evil and suffering that had invaded God’s good creation and making sure it stayed good forever. It is like God’s creation has been twisted out of shape. Evil has attacked and deformed it—like a person whose body has been crippled and misshapen. But Jesus’ mission is restoration. Many of his miracles involved restoring misshapen bodies. He promises healing—new bodies in a renewed world—to all who will trust and follow him. And he put his money where his mouth was and showed he actually had power to do what he promised.
But some of the suffering is caused by the evil inclinations of human beings. Jesus likened himself to a doctor. He said he hadn’t come for the healthy, but to heal the sick. He meant those who realized they were sick: the sinners. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” he said at another time. He explained that he must give up his life as a ransom for many. His death would make it possible for us to be forgiven. He died with humans in mind. He even prayed for those who were driving nails into his wrists. This is another reason we believe God is good.
Two thousand years ago Jesus shouldered our guilt and made it possible for our crippled souls to be healed. Then he led the way through death into the resurrection life he intends for all his forgiven people. He is going to restore our death-bound broken world. Those who believe in him trust his promise that he will do this, and live and hope for that future. We believe God is good because he also promises us a good future. He invites us to enter his kingdom now and promises us restored bodies when he comes to make all things new.
What are we to do with this? If it is all a story, then I have to tell you we are all on the way down. There is no other hope, except the temporary, artificial hopes you may conjure up for yourself: affluence—if you are lucky—peace of mind—if you can, or perhaps some great cause to keep your mind away from the dying that will one day claim us. But if Jesus was for real—as I am convinced he was—then death is not the all-powerful grim reaper. He defeated death and goodness has a future, and so do you—if you throw your lot in with him.
“What good is it if someone gains the whole world, yet loses his life?” said Jesus. “But whoever loses his life for me and for my kingdom, will not perish, but will have everlasting life.”