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“How big is your god?” Pastor Tom Johnson, May 14, 2023
In Acts chapter 17 we have the first account of Jesus Christ preached to a non-Jewish audience. There were many different worldviews and religions coexisting in Athens. They often gathered to simply discuss the latest in philosophy and religion. When Paul sees all the idols, he is deeply distressed. Have you been to the Met and seen all the stone statues? The Greek exhibit is huge—not to mention the Egyptian and Roman rooms full of impressive monuments to their gods. But isn’t it sad to think of generations of people living in fear and despair under false religion?
Paul is heartbroken because their gods led them away from the true and living God. I love Paul’s strategy. There is great wisdom in the way he engages the culture. Paul wants everyone to have the same assurance of forgiveness—the same confidence of eternal life. He’s willing to be called a babbler and mistreated if it means more people hear about Jesus. Like his Savior, he’s willing to suffer for the Gospel.
Paul has the wisdom to listen first and then speak. God calls us to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Paul read the inscriptions on the idols and monuments. Long before Paul comes to Athens, he read their poets and even quotes two of them. Paul’s God is so big that God transcends all our differences. As the Greek gods stand tall around Paul and his listeners, no idol can compare. Christ alone reveals just how immense true and living God is. Heaven and earth cannot contain him, let alone something carved by human hands. Paul strikes a universal. God created the universe, the stars, planets, and all earth’s creatures. He created every human soul. In that sense, we are all God’s children. Therefore God is not Jewish. God is not Greek. God is not Lutheran. Our God is not a tribal god. He is for everyone—every tribe, nation, tongue, and people.
I love the fact that the Greeks left room for what did not know or for whom they did not yet know. They have a monument to an unknown god. Paul sees a door of opportunity to give them what they acknowledge they do not possess—knowledge about Jesus Christ who lived, died, and rose again from the dead. Paul asks them to question how big there god is. How can something man-made be a god to you? We should not worship any created thing—only the Creator. Paul rightly presumes that their gods left people disappointed, empty, and in despair.
The way Paul talks about the true and living God reveals our own idols and the idols of our age. How big is your god—lower-case “g”? Is it material things and money? Is it athletics? Is it the performing arts? Substance abuse? Is it a toxic relationship that is draining us? Anything or anyone that we look to for happiness or fulfillment can crowd out the true and living God. So how big is this lower case “g” god that is getting in the way of a life of meaning and true joy that no one or no thing can take away? It’s time that we leave them behind—say farewell and goodbye to the gods of this age. As Christians we can belittle God or have a false image of who he is. Remember the Israelites who made a golden calf right after God delivered them from 400 years of slavery in Egypt and said the image was of Yahweh God. So we too can make God small in our imaginations and lives.
What I believe is so challenging—so beautifully challenging about this account of Paul sharing his faith in Jesus Christ is this: Christ did not begin his work in Athens when Paul showed up—or when any Christian or Jew began to share their faith. Christ was already working to push his light through the darkness. Paul says, “Indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’” How big is our God? Do we think about him as only the God of our time and spiritual experience or the God of all people for all time? In quoting a Greek poet, Paul is saying the same thing John says in his Gospel, “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:5). “In him we live and move and have our being.”
How big is our God—three persons yet one God? How big is our Jesus—true God yet also fully human? These are monuments to what we cannot fully know or understand by our limited intellect. Even our best theologians fall short. How big is our Christ? Do we have the same confidence and boldness and teachable spirit as Paul did—to learn about the people God has brought to New York—to find the light of Christ breaking through their groping for God in the dark?
Just down the street we have two synagogues, a mosque, and a Hindi temple. How big is our Christ, St. Luke? Are we secure enough in the wonder and awesomeness of God to confess the nearness of God to everyone? Are humble enough to share our faith in Christ while at the same time respecting others’ spiritual journey thus far? Jesus Christ is not hiding behind Christianity. He is not tucked away somewhere in the Lutheran church. He is not far from any of us. The risen Christ scatters the darkness with the light of his grace, forgiveness, and eternal life. God does not want us to know just how big he is compared to false religion but how near he is in Jesus Christ—how much he loves the world—so much so that he gave his only begotten Son. He is as near as every breath we take, as near as every step we take, as near as our own existence. For “in him we live and move and have our being.”
Finish then thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee!
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heav’n we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise!
(“The King of Love, My Shepherd Is” LBW 456, vv. 1 & 6)
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
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