Damaris in Athens and Yemen

The reference:            Acts 17:34       After Paul preached in Athens, a few men believed, also a woman named Damaris.

The story that emerges:

Paul stopped in Athens on his way down the Greek peninsula from Berea to Corinth. He waited there for Timothy and Silas whom he had left in Berea. Ever the evangelist, Paul found philosophers at a meeting place called the Areopagus, also known as Mars Hill. This promontory rises just off one corner of the Acropolis where, in august presence in the Parthenon, stands a statue to Athena, patron of the city.

Paul eagerly engaged the philosophers in dialogue, generating interest in his description of the God and Father of Jesus Christ. This God he presented as a response to the inscription at an altar, “To an Unknown God.” 

Those philosophers listened as Paul spelled out God as creator, ruler of the world, and finally judge of all. This judge, he proclaimed, was Jesus, the incarnation of God, who died on a cross and was resurrected. He, Jesus, will return as the world’s judge.

Luke tells us that some of those listening sneered when it came to the resurrection. Others were curious. Some, however, became followers or Paul and believed his message. Among these was the subject of this profile, a woman named Damaris. 

After the stay of Paul in Athens, we hear no more of Damaris. What moved this woman, living in the shadow of the crown of Greek culture, to follow Jesus Christ? The answer promises a hearing of great worth.

When Damaris joined me on my heavenly bench, I knew I was with someone of serous faith and kind heart.

My opening question was quite simple: “What was it in Paul’s preaching that caught your attention and moved you to faith?” I confess that her answer surprised me. 

“Repentance. When Paul said that God called us to repent.”

Not what I expected. All that expert maneuvering with the philosophical concepts--no, not that, but the call to repent. You will need to expand on that.

“I will. As I was listening to Paul, over his shoulder I saw the epitome of the Greek gods and religion—Athena. The pantheon of gods and goddesses had been the subject of our playwrights and poets for centuries. And what do we see of these gods? They squabble, compete, take sides in battles, and claim powers over heroes and villains. Paul’s God was different.”

Yes, I am sure of that, but I don’t see how that leads to repentance.

“It’s all because of who God is, the God Paul was describing. Those gods, the ones we read about, they don’t invite us to close relationship with them. God does. And this God who wants us to be close to Him, He is holy. He is the real thing. Tested and tried through and through. He is pure, fair, honest, right, wise. That is the connection. 

This holy God could have turned us loose and abandoned us. We certainly deserve that. But He doesn’t. He wants us to come to Him and find Him. Yes, we have established this distance with our sin, but He is a God who is driven by love for us. He wants us. Such love that He would let His Son die on the cross for the means of forgiveness.

So  that makes repentance our gateway to this God. He is waiting for us; He is wanting us to want Him. We find Him when we deal fairly with our sin, and that is when we repent. That is why repentance caught my attention. It is the God to whom repentance takes us.”

 “A second thing caught me, something just as stunning. He suffered. He actually became a human—fully, altogether—and suffered as we do. No safety zone protecting Him from our hurts and fears. No exemption from our pain and our trials, our temptations and our disappointments. I cannot impress upon you how precious that is. When I take Him my hurts and fears, I am certain He hears and He understands.

I figured that if these insights were true of Paul’s God—that He is holy, wants me, sent His Son to the cross, and suffered as we do—I will follow that God.”

Thank you, Damaris. I knew your hold on Jesus Christ would be clearly reasoned. 

“Now let me ask you a question.”

Sure.

“Back in the time you are living in, you have a global crisis. The coronavirus and Covid-19. If you were hearing Paul’s sermon back then, what would catch your attention?”

Hmmm. Fair question. I guess it hadn’t occurred to me. Easier to see God through the eyes of a distant and different culture than my own.  

“Pardon me, but from my perspective I do believe there are connections.”

How true. The two things that caught you are the very things that will hold our faith. First, suffering.  Our grief is personal and it is global. The stories, from very near to very far, stir deep sadness. Knowing how He, our Father, suffers over what we, His children, are going through is comfort of the strongest and sweetest balm.

And like you, repentance. But with a deeper sphere than just my self-absorbed sphere, my needs, my safety. Our world is in pain for reasons that precede the covid-19 disease and will be in evidence afterwards. Our greed, our abuses of power and position, our aversion to others’ straits—these bring a global context to repentance. The results are calamities, calamities like the people of Yemen. Where are they and, anyway, who cares? Our attention is fixed on social distancing and $2 trillion. Yet for 20 million Yemeni, their daily issues are food, sanitation, water, and health care. That’s because of their daily starvation, cholera, and bombed homes and hospitals. Yemen also reveals our fallen nature and begs our repentance. 

Back in our times we are as baffled by what  is happening as by what will be left. The evidence of the holy God, however, is not eradicated by what we are experiencing but rather verified by the suffering and the cross of His Son. And that is as true in the Greek world as in ours, convoluted and frightening as ours is. 

Thank you, Damaris, for the clearness of your faith in Athens and your encouragement to us here. We need that.