Down to the River to Pray

Today we took a whirlwind trip to the region of Galilee, where Jesus grew up and served out most of his ministry.  There is a holy site approximately every mile, so we couldn't go to all of them, but we did our best!

The first stop was the Jordan River, at a spot called Yardenit. It is revered as THE spot where John baptized Jesus and the holy spirit descended like a dove, with a voice booming out of the clouds that Jesus was God's beloved son with whom God was well pleased.  (There's also another spot further down the Jordan that is THE spot, but we'll not get into that debate...  Here in Israel there are several spots for every event.)

Yardenit has been built up and landscaped quite a bit, so that it's now a bit more like a nicely landscaped logjam ride than a serene and remote river.  They have places where you can get a whole group together and baptize people, as long as the baptizees are wearing special white robes with a picture of Jesus begin baptized by John on them (for a mere $25).  The group we saw doing this looked like they really were just playing around in the water, splashing each other and doing swimming races across the Jordan (which is only about 10 yards wide).  It was possible they'd already been baptized and were simply joyous in the moment, but I have my doubts.

There's another spot where you can just go and put your feet in the water.  We decided to go there, and I followed the lead of another minister there and did some remembrances of baptism with Mom and John.  That was pretty cool!  We filled up some bottles with holy water, too, for future use.

The constant stream of the faithful to the Jordan has collected a following -- of giant muskrats and catfish!  These two types of creatures were ready and waiting, swimming right by our feet as we stepped in the water, begging to be fed.  Many of the faithful obliged.  I wonder if Jesus encountered muskrats during his baptism...

Back in the car, we made our way up the Sea of Galilee (which is really a large freshwater lake) to Tiberias, named after the Roman emperor Tiberius.  We got a great view of the lake here, and saw some old ruins that had no signs in English, so we have no idea what we saw.

Another few miles down the road was Capernaum, now called Kfar Nahum.  (I'm giving you mileage so you can see how close all these places are!)  This is Jesus' adopted hometown after he was thrown out by his people in Nazareth.  It's also the hometown of Peter, James, John, Andrew, and Matthew.  Peter's house is highly revered there, and there have been several churches built on the footprint of his old house (remember, Jesus said, "Peter, you are the rock on which I will build my church").  The church that is there now is really cool.  It's suspended above the ruins, with a glass floor, so you can look down and see them below you!  There are a ton of ruins that are well preserved here, because the town was abandoned several hundred years after jesus.  You can now see the outlines of all the little houses, and a giant synagoge that was built over top of the synagoge that Jesus would have preached his first big sermon in.  I didn't get many good pictures here, so here is a small example of some of the carving.

About two minutes down the road from that was the Church of the Beatitudes, on the site where Jesus is said to have delivered the Sermon on the Mount.  I could certainly see why he would choose this place.  It is lusciously verdant, with an amazing view of the Sea.  There were many tributes to the beatitudes at this church, including my favorite, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God."

We decided to skip the site of the loaves and fishes that was another five minutes away because we needed some loaves and fishes ourselves.  We turned north to our next destination, a tiny mountain village called Safat (or Zafat or Safed, depending on the map).  Safat is the center of Kaballah study, and is known as sort of the mystical center of Judaism.  The village was really beautiful -- many of the stone buildings had been there for about 400 years, and there was a giant artists' colony of kabbalistic art.  Much of the art looked like it had been done while high on LSD, which might be similar to the high one gets from Kaballistic practice...  It was really interesting, though, to see what is basically a whole town of Orthodox and Hasidic hippies. 

We tried to squeeze a trip to Nazareth in on our way home from Safat, but we got a bit lost in the outskirts of town.  By the time we got there, they had just closed the Basilica of the Annunciation, one of the most beautiful churches in Israel from what I hear.  We did hear some prayers from the Orthodox monks inside, though, which was nice.  Then it was time to pile back into the car and find our way home.  After several more wrong turns, we did it!

We're packing up tonight and flying out tomorrrow.  I can't believe this trip is over so quickly!  I've packed about as much as possible in, and I'm sure I'll be processing it for a long time.  Thank you for reading along with me!  I'll keep posting as I have more thoughts...

Shalom!
Rachel