TRAVEL REFLECTIONS:

I have just returned from an eighteen-day tour of biblical and archaeological sites in Greece in Turkey. I’m not going to lie; it was pretty amazing. I am certainly still digesting the whole experience and cannot give a clear answer to the inevitable question of ‘What was your favourite place?’ I am still saying it’s the ancient city of Pergamum, but the reason why will have to wait for another blog. Throughout the journey, I was struck by the beauty and mystery that surrounds so much of this rich culture. Walking up through the entrance of the Acropolis in Athens, your eyes are lifted to the ancient pillars that mark the gateway to this wonderful sanctuary. Walking around the tentmaker’s quarter in Corinth you get a sense of the daily life that people lived. The mysterious ruins of ancient Delphi took my imagination o on a journey through the ancient mythology of the Greeks. The great city of Ephesus gave you a sense of the power of the Roman empire at its height. The beauty of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was a true architectural marvel. Something that struck me deeply during a visit to The National Archaeological Museum in Athens, however, was something that I did not expect. Among the famous statues and iconic Greek poetry stands a collection of funeral stones. One of these blocks of marble reduced me to tears. On a large vase that would have been placed on top of a grave is a depiction of a young woman.

She is holding hands with Hermes, who in Greek mythology was the one who would transport people to the underworld. But they cannot go, because Hermes is being held back by the young woman’s father and mother. They could not come to terms with their loss. She was being taken from them too soon. All this is depicted on her tombstone. What made this scene so poignant was that we were in the museum on Easter Saturday. The day that the Bible records as the day Jesus remained dead in the grave. It was the day that Jesus’s followers were filled with hopeless grief. None of us can escape death. Death can come suddenly and unexpectedly. When we lose loved ones, we don’t want to let them go. But the hope found in the Bible is a resurrection hope. A living hope. On Easter Sunday, Jesus walked out of the grave, defeating death. The Apostle Paul wrote of this truth in 1 Corinthians 15:20 where he said:

‘But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.’ In the Gospel, there is true comfort in the face of death. There is true hope in the midst of loss. As I reflected on this, and much of what I was able to see, this message of hope in the face of our mortality was permeating through so much of the ancient world, and it is something that fills much of our world too. The question that both the ancient Greeks, and we, must answer is this; how will we face it?