Israel Day Four

[again, with the picture thing...]

Today, we made six stops. Our first stop was at the Mt. of Beattitudes, which was the place where the Sermon on the Mount most likely took place. They only way we can know that is because of its natural acoustics that allow Jesus to speak to many people without amplification. The Arabs have planted crops over the actual hillside (what Matthew 5:1 calls a mountain side) where Jesus would have been because they didn’t want a whole bunch of tourists meeting there. I have to be honest – I went in expecting a spiritual experience being there, but I ended up just feeling like a tourist. There were so many people there; people from Nigeria, Russian, Hong Kong, etc. were there. It was noisy and crowded and so I was caught off guard by that more than I thought I would be.

[pic of that here…]

Our second stop was at a possible place where the 5000 men were fed. (All these places we are visiting are just possibilities of the area where Jesus did his works.) There was an old church there built by the Byzantines, which was okay.

Our third stop was down by the Sea of Galilee commemorating the place where Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. It was also the place where Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. It was neat being on the water there:

[Sea of Galilee pic]

Our fourth stop was in Capernaum, where Jesus lived. (Matt. 4:13) This place was pretty cool, because here is where Jesus did much of his preaching, teaching, and healing. Peter’s house (again, perhaps) was excavated, which showed how their rooms were set up and organized. There were synagogue ruins that were built in 4th century, but represented well the place where Jesus taught often. Here we sang songs and prayed and had a healing service. Again, there were so many people around, so it was different than what I expected.

[peter’s house pic]

We then had lunch: [fish pic] and then went down to the highlight of my day: the Jordan River. We had to pay $9 for a robe and a towel in order to be baptized in the Jordan. There were railings to go down into the water and we had our tour pastor baptize about 12 of us. The water was very cold and slimy, but it was neat to think about Jesus’ experience in this same water. (Though probably not at this place we were at.) This was the most meaningful place for me today.

[Jordan river pic]

We came back to the hotel for a rest, and then for our sixth thing today (whew!) we took a boat ride out on the Sea of Galilee. This was a fun time, too, because it was just us and we sang some songs, read some Scripture and had a devotional time.