One of the most telling passages in the New Testament comes in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 17. Paul, the newly Christian itinerant preacher, visits Athens, the center of intellect and culture. Looking about at all the stone idols and gods, he becomes agitated and starts talking in synagogues and public squares about Jesus and the Resurrection.
The Athenians become agitated as well by his words and bring him to the Areopagus, the place where great ideas were debated, for as it says in Acts "Athenians as well as the foreigners residing there used their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new."
Paul rises to the occasion before the assembly, hoping to win hearts and minds with warm words. "You Athenians ..." he begins and then proceeds to flatter them by calling them "very religious" by evidence of their many gods. He then refers to an empty altar dedicated to "the unknown god," and concludes with dramatic flair, "What you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you." He tells them about Jesus.
We can picture brave Paul straining to make a connection with those who thought of themselves as the great intellectuals of the age, citing the words of a Greek philosopher, pulling out what he thought to be an ingenius logical argument. After all, he begins with what the Athenians were familiar with (the "unknown god") and relates their uncertain worship to the God whom he will reveal to them -- Jesus. Surely, the men of Athens will be moved by such rhetorical art!
But they are not. They are interested in "new things" but evidently not in the new life that might force them to rethink their assumptions.
"When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, 'We should like to hear you on this matter some other time.' And so Paul left them" (17:32-33).
You can almost hear the soft, derisive laughter, the suppressed guffaws, the knowing winks among men of great thought who were not going to sit and listen to child's tales about a dead man rising. Scoff!
They feign politeness, asking him to return "some other time," a phrase similar to our "I'll get back to you," or "I'll call you."
How telling is the scene: a courageous witness to the hope of all mankind (that this life is not the end) is met with the apathetic intellectual sloth of Athenians who only wanted to listen to what amused or flattered them. They dismissed Paul as a zealot or miscreant, but deep down they must have known that if what he said was true, they would have to change their lives, and make room for a new reality that was more than just talk.
How do we respond to news of the Resurrection? When the Paschal candle was lit at the Easter Vigil, did we simply watch, or did we let the fire of Christ's new life burn into our hearts, and enter our souls?
Are we living new lives now? Or has another Easter passed with us saying, by attitude and deed, "We will hear about this some other time"?
Be of good cheer. After the searing joy of the eight days of Easter, we have Divine Mercy Sunday. It is time to confess that we are not worthy of the death and Resurrection of our Lord. It is time to say how weak is our faith and how failing are our efforts.
The time is now, not "some other time," to hear the Good News and to rely solely on the mercy of Jesus.
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