Wake up! We'll Miss the Bus!

“Quick, wake up—we’ve overslept and we’re going to be late!”

Dale and I scramble out bed to shave and shower. I had expected to be at the dining room first thing before all the good chow gets gobbled up. Now we are 30 minutes late!

Not to worry. What a buffet! Breads galore. Meat and cheese. Eggs, omelets, sausage, hot tomatoes, waffles, croissants, jams and jellies. Yogurt, fruits of all kinds, granola, coffee cakes, juices, milk, coffee, tea and on and on. Several of us stuff a boiled egg in our pocket for lunch.

It’s drizzling as we make our way to the bus. But two hours later we enjoy some weak sunshine and 48 to 50 degree temperatures.

But that’s not needed. We have lunch at the seaport of ancient Neapolis where Paul’s entourage docked and he stepped foot for the first time in Europe—about 47 A.D. Now it’s Kavala (renamed by the occupying Turks 500 years ago as a place where you changed horses (our word cavalry comes from that root) with 80,000 inhabitants. The “tarverna” has fresh sea food, plus all other Greek goodies. Mmmm.

The houses cling to steep hillsides, topped by a medieval fort with the Greek flag straight out in the wind. In the harbor we are sheltered as we watch fishing boats head out to the Aegean Sea.

It is Sabbato here—Sunday. All the stores in Greece still close for Sunday—one benign influence of the powerful Greek Orthodox Church. But restaurants and hotels are busy.

For our worship observance, the pastor of the large group we are with (St. Francis in the Field Episcopal, near Louisville) conducts a Eucharistic service by the babbling small river where St. Paul baptized the first European—a businesswoman named Lydia. It is unspoiled, a few dozen yards from a small church in a field next to a derelict Roman cemetery. There are five rows of stone benches on the bank, since baptisms are done here today.

We go through a beautiful liturgy of prayers, the Nicene Creed, Scripture readings from the Letter to the Philippians, book-ended by two praise songs—Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God and one I know but the title escapes me. (Should have eaten more fish—I ordered fish soup at lunch, thinking I was getting the smaller—and cheaper bowl, but only the more expensive one had actual fish in it!)

Pastor Robin gave a few well-chosen words, followed by the bread and wine. We filed over a tiny arched bridge to the tiny island in the middle of the brook to receive the sacrament and back on a second arched a few yards upstream.

At the small church, I lit a candle, which one then props into the sand in the marble stand and proceeded to the center. It’s small, with a baptismal font in the center under an exquisite dome showing the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. Our guide, George, explains how infants are baptized here. The priest spreads olive oil over the baby’s body, he immerses it in the water, having first cut a snip of hair from its head, representing the break with the sins of our ancestors. Then he and the godfather walk around the font showing the child to all the family and friends, rejoicing in a new life given to God. George is also a cantor and sings a sample of the liturgy enhanced by the acoustics of this marble sanctuary.

Philippi’s Romans ruins run across wild lands where sheep and goats now graze. We stand on the “stage” of the modest sized Amphitheatre—always built on a convenient hillside so the stone benches rise naturally. There are pillars and pediments lying about. Many are numbered and set on wood racks ready to be used again. They are restoring the area, using original and new marble blocks. They are linked together the same way as in Roman times—matching opposite slots are filled with molten lead, thus preventing shifting due to frost and earthquakes, to which the region is prone. (There was a 6.6 quake here in 1978.)

Nearby is the ruin of a Byzantine church, with part of the steps to the altar, an area of marble flooring, and a couple of columns standing vigil. The actual jail in which Paul and Silas sang hymns while awaiting their appearance before the magistrate has been dug out partially. It was small—fifteen by twenty feet. Hardly what the artists present us in those Sunday school lessons we studied as kids.

To get to the agora we have to cross a busy road, fortunately equipped with a pedestrian light. Going down a flight of steps, we find ourselves on the Egnatian Way, built for Roman armies 50 years before the birth of Jesus. Unused now, it goes for miles and is not only recognizable but also in good shape. The stones are still flat enough to take horse and chariot. We did not see any during the brief time we were there. There are acres and acres of foundations and even many columns—one for the prefects quarters and another large triad left from the ruined church which was raised on the site of the Roman court building where Paul would have answered questions about the riot he was blamed for.

I muse how Roman times were not that many generations ago. I have known people born at the time of our Civil War. Ten more links like that and we are in the ancient world.

Being here helps to vivify the way people like ourselves did their work, raised their families and carried on the affairs of state. In that setting somehow the Gospel was brought by an unlikely person of Jewish birth—Saul of Tarsus, now Paul—the “little one,” who walked his way along these roads, looking for synagogues so he could share the Good News first with his countrymen. But here there were not to be found the 12 men needed for a synagogue. So he met some women on the banks of a small river just outside the city’s northeast wall, probably doing their laundry along the banks. This was the edge of town where people on the edge of society gossiped about the latest news from Rome.

And Lydia opened her heart and asked for baptism into this strange new faith. Because of her we who come from European stock have come to follow in the Way of Jesus.

That wake up call is still sounding in the world today, not only in Europe and the Americas, but in Asia and Africa, where countless Lydias open their hearts to the same message St. Paul brought to these hills nearly two millennia ago.