Good morning! I’m blogging in the Paris airport at the moment after a 1:15 am flight from Amman. We have really long layovers in Paris and Atlanta before we finally arrive in Indy. Needless to say, we are all really tired, but hanging in there and ready to come home! Yesterday was a wonderful day of taking in the holy sites around the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus spent much of his time teaching and performing miracles. We started the morning with a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done and it was so beautiful. We fed the seagulls, listened to music, and were all having a wonderful time. We talked about how a lot of the sites we had seen so far were “possible sites” of an occurrence, but there is no doubt about the Sea of Galilee. This was it and we were sailing on it! The Galilee is the only source of fresh water in Israel- now and in the time of Jesus. It is a life giving source to all in the area surrounded by beautiful mountains and fertile ground. It was easy to put everything into perspective and imagine Jesus walking this earth in this area healing, teaching, and performing miracles. So we sailed and enjoyed another beautiful sunny day in Israel.
When we reached the other side of the Sea of Galilee, we saw the “Jesus boat” or the “Ancient Boat”- a boat that was discovered in the sea that dates back to 2,000 years ago. We learned how it was preserved and how they pulled it out of the water and what it could have been used for.
The Mount of the Beatitudes was our next stop- a mountain near the Sea of Galilee believed to be a possible spot where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount and preached the famous beatitudes found in Matthew 5. We visited the church there and walked around for a bit. We all had a laugh at one of the stones with the inscription, “Blessed are the ‘poo’ in Spirit.” It seemed to us like someone wanted to have a little fun with that one!
After the Beatitudes, we visited Tabgha, the site where it is believed that Jesus taught on the shores of Galilee and where the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes took place. It was awesome to go down to the shore and put our hands in the water and imagine what it would have been like to be gathered there to hear Jesus teach. This spot is also believed to be where Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and had a meal with them and asked Peter, “Do you love me?” three times in order to reverse Peter’s denial of him 3 times. There was a beautiful little church there with a large stone inside, believed to be the rock where Jesus may have gathered to prepare a meal with his disciples.
None of us where ready to leave this “beachy” spot, but our next stop was Capernaum, the “town of Jesus” where he spent a lot of his ministry. We saw the excavations of the town and Peter’s mother in law’s home, where Jesus and Peter spent much of their time and where scripture tells us several miracles occurred. Right across from the excavated home were the remains of a synagogue that dates back to the 4th century and probably built upon the ruins of the 1st century synagogue where Jesus would have preached, taught, and worshiped. The coolest thing in Capernaum (in my opinion) was the church built on top of the excavated house. It was a square shaped church with seats on 4 sides, and in the very middle of the church was a huge glass panel where you could look straight down and see the remains of Peter’s home, right over where archaeologists believe the altar or center of worship may have been in the house. Corey and I agreed that this was the most beautiful church out of all we had seen on the trip.
After Capernaum, we headed to a Kibbutz (a Jewish farming community) for lunch where we enjoyed a meal (an expensive one!) of St. Peter’s fish and other options.
THEN it was time to recross the border from Israel to Jordan, which we were all dreading. However, this time was not nearly as stressful as the previous crossing from Jordan to Israel. The whole process still took around an hour and a half to two hours, and was not fun, but at least it was more calm. We ventured through Amman traffic to get to our hotel where we would check in for a few hours- long enough to shower and sleep if we wished, and to have dinner. We left the hotel at 10:30 for the airport, and now here we are- tired and ready to come home, which we hopefully will be at 8:45 Tuesday night. Wow!
It’s been a wonderful trip, and in case you’re wondering, the tiring and stressful travel part of getting there is worth the experience of the Holy Land. I know that I will never read scripture in the same way again, knowing that I can now picture the land and know more about the context and more history of the Gospel readings.
I will post more of a reflection of the whole trip once we get back to reality. I’ll post some more pictures soon, too. Thanks for stopping by!
-Jill
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