Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Acts 14:5–18; Psalm 115; John 14:21–26
A lame man stood up.
And when he stood, a whole city fell down.
The cripple rose in body, but the crowd sank in spirit.
For they saw the wonder, but missed the source.
They looked at Barnabas and called him Zeus.
They looked at Paul and called him Hermes.
They saw power, and gave the glory elsewhere.
They saw a sign, and ran back to their idols.
So it has always been.
Man is slow to worship the God who cannot be managed, and quick to bow before what his own hands can shape.
The living God is too great.
So we make smaller gods.
A god we can carry. A god we can decorate. A god that does not command. A god that does not judge. A god that does not interrupt us.
Wood does not speak. Stone does not save. Silver does not love. Gold does not heal.
“They have mouths, but do not speak. Eyes, but do not see.”
The idol has a face, but no breath.
It stands, but does not live.
It is carried by man, because it cannot carry man.
And yet man bows before it.
So Paul cries out: We bring you good news.
Good news— not that you should polish your idols, but that you should leave them.
Not that you should rename them, but that you should renounce them.
Turn away, he says, from these vain things to the living God.
The living God—
the One who made the sky, and is not housed by human hands.
The One who made the earth, and cannot be carved from it.
The One who made the sea, and is not drowned in silence.
The One who gives rain from heaven, seasons in their turn, food in due time, and gladness to the heart.
He was hidden, but not absent.
Unseen, but not inactive.
Beyond image, but never beyond reach.
But that is not all.
The Lord whom heaven cannot contain desired also to dwell on earth.
And not only on earth—
in us.
This is the astonishment of the Gospel.
“If anyone loves me,” says the Lord, “we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”
Behold the wonder.
The God who made heaven makes His heaven in the human heart.
So the false gods must fall, not only from the hills and shrines, but from within us.
For idols are not only in temples of stone.
Whatever we trust more than God, whatever we fear more than God, whatever we obey instead of God— that too is an idol.
And the Gospel still cries out:
Turn away from these vain things to the living God.
Turn from what you made to the One who made you.
Turn from what cannot save to the One who heals the cripple, raises the fallen, and makes His dwelling in those who love Him.
This is the liberating power of the Gospel:
not only that idols are exposed as empty, but that hearts are filled with God.
Not only that false gods are cast down, but that the living God comes near.
Not only that heaven rules the earth, but that heaven enters the human soul.
Blessed, then, is the heart that does not become a workshop of idols, but a dwelling for God.
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Content License
© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).