After the guide finished pouring his knowledge about the Parthenon on the students, they were given their chance to roam around and inspect the magnificent structure for themselves. As I sat on the bench where the group would soon reconvene, a student came up to me and asked me how many times I had been on top of the Acropolis. I am a little embarrassed to say, but I had to count. This semester’s trip would make it my eighth visit to the Parthenon, which also means that within a matter of minutes I would soon take part in my eighth visit to Mars Hill.
We walked down a little bit from the very top of the Acropolis to arrive at the stairs taking you up to the top of Mars Hill. Somewhere between my third and sixth time on Mars Hill I noticed something. As soon as you emerge on top of the rock you will immediately see some graffiti on your left. Now I’m certainly not a fan of graffiti, especially on something as old and historical as Mars Hill, but what the graffiti says will forever stay in my mind. It simply reads, “The sword is powerful like his master.”
As a HUG tradition, all of the students sit on Mars Hill and have Paul’s sermon read to them there. As I sit there each time and listen, or even read the words of Paul, I think about a lot of things. I think about how revolutionary the idea of a loving God sending his Son to die for the sins of humanity and having him be raised back to life must have been to the followers of Zeus, Athena and the other Olympian deities. Then I also think about what the graffiti says, how God’s word, his gospel and message, is powerful, just like he is. This was the very point Paul was trying to make here 2,000 years ago, that the good news of the gospel is powerful, as is the One who came up with the plan of salvation.
That’s why I love HUG. Here, students are given the chance not only to see places they have read about for their entire lives, but also to experience them. With trips all over Greece and then even to Turkey, Egypt and Israel, HUG gives us all the chance to understand the Bible just a little bit better, to have a greater contextual understanding. I love seeing the students pull out their Bibles to mark dates in them from when they visited this site or that one, or to mark what verse they read as we all sat around the traditional site of the Mount of Beatitudes.
There is no doubt in my mind that students who come to HUG will forever read the biblical story differently because they listened to Paul’s sermon to the Areopagus while in Athens, they walked where Jesus walked in Jerusalem, they reenacted David’s fight with Goliath in the Valley of Elah, they traversed the isle of Patmos where John received his revelation and viewed the same pyramids in Egypt that both Abraham and Moses would have seen.
All of these experiences teach us something, and they teach each person a different lesson. However, I think we all learn at least one common lesson during the semester. Whether it’s your first time or eighth time at these sites, I am convinced that we all at some point are reminded that “the sword is powerful like his master.”
To follow this semester’s HUG events follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HUGreece and on Twitter at @HUGreece.
