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Have you ever been
lucky enough to visit Malta? It’s a small but beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea. Today you would get there by aeroplane, but in Jesus’
time, things were very different.
Many
years ago there was a shipwreck on the coast of Malta and the islanders
are still very keen to tell visitors the story today. . .
A man named Paul
had been taken prisoner because he believed in Jesus and wanted to tell
everyone about it. It was decided that he should travel by ship to Italy
because he was due to be tried in Rome.
First of all they
sailed from the coast of Syria, round to the north of Cyprus and onto
Turkey. There they changed ship and sailed off for Italy, but the
journey was very slow because a strong wind was blowing against them.
The ship had to sail south until they reached the island of Crete. They
stopped at a harbour but the captain of the ship didn’t want to stay
there. He thought they should go on until a safer harbour was reached.
Now Paul wasn’t
happy about this so he said to them,
“Friends, I can
see this voyage will be dangerous and that we will run considerable risk
of losing not only the cargo and the ship, but our lives as well.”
Then just at the
right time, a southerly breeze sprang up - exactly what they needed!
Up came the anchor and off sailed the sailors. The captain must have
been feeling very pleased with himself for making the right decision.
BUT THEN. . . DISASTER!
 A
hurricane burst on them from across the island. The ship was caught and
couldn’t sail against it. There was nothing they could do but let the
wind carry the ship. They passed by a small island called Cauda but oh
dear! – they were in great danger of running aground on some sandbanks.
They floated out the sea anchor and let themselves drift.
By the next day
the storm was still raging so they threw some of the cargo overboard.
Paul’s words were beginning to come true. The following day they threw
out the ship’s equipment. The sun and the stars were invisible for
several days because the storm was so bad. By then, everyone had given
up hope of surviving.
Well, not quite
everyone. An angel, you see, had visited Paul, so he knew they would be
saved. Paul spoke to them and ordered them to cheer up!
“You’re not going to die! Everyone who
sails with me will be saved, but we will lose the ship and be stranded
on some island. You must all be jolly brave,” he told the captain and
all on the ship.
After another two long weeks in the terrible storm they eventually
reached land; but before they could manoeuvre the ship safely onto a
beach, cross-currents forced the ship onto a sandbank. The bows were
firmly wedged in sand and the stern began to break up under the heavy
pounding of the waves.
The
soldiers panicked and decided to kill the prisoners because they thought
they would try to escape by swimming away. The Roman centurion who had
been guarding Paul, wanted him to live, so he stopped them. Instead he
ordered everyone who could swim to jump into the water and swim to
land. The rest were to follow either on planks or on pieces of
wreckage. Miraculously, everyone made it to shore.
They
discovered that the island was called Malta. The people who lived there
treated all the strangers from the ship with great kindness. They made
them all welcome by lighting a huge fire because it had started to rain
and the weather was cold. Paul collected a bundle of sticks and was
putting them on the fire when a poisonous snake appeared and bit him on
the hand. Imagine the surprise of the inhabitants when Paul shook the
creature off into the fire and came to no harm. They watched him,
expecting him to swell up or drop down dead. When nothing happened to
him they said, “He must be a god!”
Paul
stayed on the island for three months, preaching the Gospel and praying,
as well as healing the sick. He converted many Maltese people to
Christianity. One of them, a man called Publius, later became the Bishop
of Malta.
By
the 3rd Century A.D., Christianity became the accepted religion among
the majority of the population of Malta.
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