We Came Up Today

Its been quite a day.  We started the day in the desert on top of Masada, the site of the deaths of 960 zealots who killed themselves rather than become Roman slaves.  Men killed their family members.  They then drew lots for who would be the last one standing and commit suicide.  We concluded Herod was an eccentric and arrogant genius as far as construction was concerned.  Frescoes on the walls of his palace still exist.  We then stopped at the nature reserve of Ein Gedi where David hid out from Saul.  What a peaceful, beautiful place.  Following lunch, we went up into the Holy City of Jerusalem.  No matter how many times I see the Old City for the first time in a trip, my heart is still stirred.  After some camel rides and explanation at the top of the Mount of Olives, we went down the Palm Sunday road, the same path Jesus would have ridden on His donkey.  A quick stop at the tear drop church, Dominus Flevit, built over the site where Jesus sat and wept over the city, and we were on to Gethsemane.  We wondered if we would have kept watch with Jesus?  We ended our day at the home of Caiaphas the high priest and read Psalm 88 in the pit where Jesus was imprisoned. 

From North to South

Today we left the beauty and coolness of the Galilee and headed south to the desert.  Beth Shan, the town that witnessed the death of King Saul, Jonathan and two of his brothers on Mt. Gilboa, was our first stop.  While nothing much is excavated up on the tel (hill), the later Roman and Greek city of Scytopolis is magnificent.  It was destroyed by an earthquake in the 700's.  We then climbed Mt. Gilboa where Saul and family died and read the lament David wrote for his father-in-law and close friend.  What a view of the lower end of the Jezreel Valey, the Jordan Valley, the Samaritan mountains and the mountains of Jordan.  We stopped for lunch and toured Qumran. A shepherd boy found the first Dead Sea scrolls here in 1947.  Written by the Essenes, a reclusive group whose main task seems to have been copying the Scriptures, the scrolls contained a complete copy of Isaiah and pieces of every other Old Testament book except Esther and Ezra.  We continued south to our destination for the night, the Dead Sea.  Most of our group took a dip in the less than warm water, walking out to waist deep and sitting.  You can't sink.  It was a blast.  Tomorrow we begin by visiting the top of Masada and then it is up to the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Visits to Three Countries

Today we saw things historic.  There were two Biblical sites first.  We went to Dan, one of the northern towns of Israel in the Old Testament. Abraham chased down five kings up to here to get Lot and his family back.  It is also the place Jeroboam, King of Israel, set up a temple with a golden calf in order to not have His people go back to Jerusalem to worship.  We also visted Banias.  This town was also known as Caesarea Philippi.  It was outside this town that Peter first professed Jesus as being the Christ.
At Dan, we stood almost on the Lebanese border.  We then traveled through snow to eventually reach Mt. Bental, a former army bunker on the Syrian border.  It was in this region where Syria attacked during the Yom Kippur War.  Many people were out because the area was blanketed with snow.  See the picture below.  We then made our way down through the length of the Golan Heights to the Peace Vista overlooking the Sea of Galilee.  What a breathtaking sight.  On our way home we traversed a narrow windy road that took us by the Jordanian boarder.  Three countries in the space of a few hours.

One of the most fascinating things we did today was to stop at the tomb of Honi the Circlemaker. We've been reading Mark Batterson's book and found Honi's tomb along the way today.

Our Galilee Experience

What a day we had today!  We started our day taking a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee (or Sea of Tiberias or Lake Kinnereth).  The view from there puts the ministry of Jesus geographically into perspective.  We had a mini worship experience on the Mt. of Beatitudes where Jesus did the Sermon on the Mount and fed the 5000.  A short hail storm hit while we were there but it did not interrupt us.  We then visited the three cities Jesus cursed: Korazim, Capernaum and Bethsaida.  Capernaum was the headquarters for Jesus' ministry.  For lunch, we were able to order "St. Peter's Fish" as an option. One brave soul, Jeff Corbett, took the challenge.  After visiting Bethsaida, we went down the west side of the lake at the base of the Golan Heights.  We stopped at the chapel at Kursi, where Jesus cast the demons into the pigs.  We ended our day baptizing seven of our team in the Jordan River. (A complete video of our baptisms can be seen on my Facebook page.  Go to Facebook, "Patrick Jones".)   It was a full and fulfilling day.  See the pictures below.

The Storm Continues. . .

Our second day saw the storm continuing.  Because of it, the amphitheater and Crusader fortress at Caesarea were closed.  While disappointed, we went to the aqueduct that brought water to the city; stood at the top of the building at Mt. Carmel; crossed the valley to Megiddo, getting out of the rain down in the water tunnel; had our first Falafel near Nazareth; listened to Pastor Pat (the other one) read from the Gospel of Mark in the ancient synagogue of Nazareth; Stood at the top of the Precipice where they wanted to push Jesus off for blasphemy; and having driven through Cana, ended our day along the shores of the Sea of Galilee at the spot where the resurrected Jesus cooked breakfast for His disciples.  All in all it was a good day.  At the Sea of Galilee we were blessed to see a double rainbow.

We're Here

My modem failed me the first day out so if you were looking to see if we arrived safely, WE DID.  It was a good flight, arriving a little before 2:00 p.m. local time, 45 minutes ahead of schedule.  We got through passport control, got our luggage and met our guide Nir and bus driver Isaac.  We also arrived to one of the strongest storms they have had in some time.  The winds howled at gale force all through our first night.  It also rained some as we first arrived but we still stopped by to see the ancient port of Joppa.  This is where Jonah headed the opposite direction from Ninevah and Peter saw the vision from heaven that led him to go to the house of Cornelius in Caesarea.  Here are some pictures from our first day.  We had varied amounts of sleep the first night.

At JFK

The Atlantic Avenue group has anchored this corner of Gate 6 since early afternoon. We joined them around 5:00. We are all ready to get boarded, get some sleep, and wake up in the Holy Land.