Day 7 - Boat Ride

Day 7 Tuesday 29 May – Boat Ride

I have been thinking about this post for a day or two.  I will do my best not to let my cynical side dominate these thoughts.

Our day began even a little earlier than normal.  (OK, I am in serious trouble when I consider it normal that I am getting a wakeup call from Dr. Anderson at 5:30 in the morning.)  Part of our earliness is due to today being change hotel day.  We left the hotel in Nazareth and then after a long day we will sleep in Jericho (the new one not the one with the missing walls) tonight.  On hotel changing days we have to pack our bags and take them to the bus.  My bags are considerably easier to pack without a wooden bucket to stuff into one of them.  The duffle bag without the bucket becomes my #cramallthedirtyclothesinhere bag.

We set out for a lovely bus ride from Nazareth traveling generally south to Jericho.  On our bus ride we are asked to look either right or left and notice we are going by Canna and to see the Church that is built over the assumed wedding site where Jesus miraculously turned water into wine – really good wine (see John 2).  Dr. A took the opportunity to again tout the virtues of an alcohol-free life.  He has Hebrew language reasons for his position.  I am reading a Biblical based novel by Bodie and Brock Thoene titled “When Jesus Wept”.  I am just about a third of the way through it but am enjoying it.  The ability to visualize the country side and the towns where the action takes place is a nice part to having traveled in Israel.  The book tells the story of Jesus from the eyes of David ben Lazarus (the Lazarus).  David ben Lazarus is there at the wedding in Canna.  He is there when Jesus is Baptized by John.  Today we went to the Jordan River very likely near the place where John baptized Jesus.

But before heading south we go east to the Sea of Galilee and the city of Tiberias.  John chapter 6 and Matthew chapter 14 tells us the story that it was on the banks of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias) very near Tiberias that Jesus fed the 5000.  It was at the same time that Jesus walked on the water and Peter nearly drowned trying to walk on the water.

The weather was near perfect.  Very pleasant temperature and clear blue skies.  We were treated to a pleasant cruise out from Tiberias and returning to the same place. 

Here is Elvin enjoying the lovely day on the sea (really a lake).

The modern city of Tiberias. Very possible built over the meadow where the 5000 gathered and were fed by Jesus.

Be ye warned: here comes the cynical part.  I get it, I really do get it.  Tourism is an industry.  The people who work in this industry (hotel staff, tour guides, people at tourist sites selling water and flutes and scarfs, and sightseeing boat captains) they are all just trying to make a living to feed their families and send them to college.

So, I was not surprised when the captain pulled out an American flag and ran it up the flag pole while the PA system played the Star-Spangled Banner.  I was also not surprised that the drawer he opened to get the American flag also had flags from Japan, Germany, England, etc.  I also was not surprised when Dr. A. made a comment after the singing about Colin Kaepernick and his “disrespect” for the flag.  I was not surprised but I was saddened.

I stand for the flag and remove my hat.  I do not put my hand over my heart.  Symbolically, my heart is where Jesus lives and I will not put anything, not country, not flag, not family, not church, not money, above my God and my Savior.  I stand for the flag because the flag represents the country that I still hope (even though recent events gives me some pause) is still a constitutional democracy.  The men and women who serve and die in the military and those who serve in public office take an oath to defend not the flag but rather the constitution of the United States.  It is that Constitution which gives Colin Kaepernick the RIGHT to protest the ongoing injustice that is suffered by black and brown people in our country by kneeling respectfully during the national anthem.  So, to suggest that anyone who exercises their constitutional rights of free speech (even when the speech is a silent prayer while on bended knee) is in some way less patriotic than others standing with hand over hearts saddens me deeply.

Well soon after the patriotic raising of the American Flag the captain broke out the souvenirs they were selling.

The boat we were on was named “David”.  The wrong and perhaps a little deceitful suggestion that this tourist boat was sort of a replica of the Jesus Boat was troublesome. If by “sort of a replica” they meant that they were both boats then maybe it might be true.  But then that would make my fishing boat a replica of the Titanic.

The Jesus Boat is a first century boat pulled from the mud of the Sea of Galilee in 1986 during a severe drought that exposed much of the shore line of the lake for the first time since the first century.  The boat was apparently a small ferry boat or fishing boat.  There is NO evidence that it was connected in any way to Jesus.  It is from the same century he walked the shores of this lake.  See https://www.jesusboat.com/story-of-the-jesus-boat/ for details if you wish and to see that the boat we were on is not a replica of any sort.

All of that to the side, it was a pleasant trip and meaningful to think that it was on the shores of this lake that Jesus called his first disciples, feed the multitudes, walked on these waters and calmed the storm.

Back on the bus we made our way to the south end of the lake where the Jordan exits the lake and makes its way further south.  We were going to stop at a spot on the Jordan River where they have created some places to enter the waters of the Jordan and to be baptized if you want.  Three of our troupe wanted to rededicate their lives and to commemorate the event by being baptized in the Jordan.  Pastor Joshua Babb agreed to conduct the baptisms.  (Joshua and father Keith, coincidently, are from the Neosho area and they know my Uncle Clyde Berner, small world.)

Rev. Joshua Babb. Ethan Cowell, Mariah Sharrow, Niki Hart.

  

It was pretty wonderful to be joined by Christians from all over the world who come to Israel to worship our Lord Jesus.

A display in the gift shop.

After all the Baptisees changed their clothes we headed out again.  We passed by – over to your right or left or you could see it if that hill wasn’t in the way -  many Biblical places.   We drove by Mount Bilboa at the bottom of which is the spring of Harod.  Judges chapter 7 tells the story of Gideon and how he chose 300 soldiers to accompany himself as God defeated the Midianites.  The soldier who kept their heads up as they drank from the pool by cupping water in their hands and bring the water to their mouths were selected and those who bent their heads to the water were sent home.  The lesson may be to be prepared but trust that God will do the work.  How else do you explain how 301 soldiers could scare off the people in the valley who had camels that numbered more than could be counted Judges 7:13.   “Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.”

Our next stop was Bet She’an.   In the 16^th to the 12^th Century BC the city was the seat of Egyptian rule.  It was on the walls of this city that the bodies of Saul and his sons were hung after the battle that did not go well for Saul and the Israelites. 

1 Samuel 31 New International Version (NIV)

Saul Takes His Life

31 Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa. ² The Philistines were in hot pursuit of Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. ³ The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.

⁴ Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.”

But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. ⁵ When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. ⁶ So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.

⁷ When the Israelites along the valley and those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines came and occupied them.

⁸ The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. ⁹ They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people. ¹⁰ They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.

¹¹ When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, ¹² all their valiant men marched through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. ¹³ Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.

King David later captured this city and the cities of Megiddo and Ta’anach and Bet She’an became an administrative city under King Solomon.  When Rome took over the country in 63 BC Bet She’an became one of the10 Decapolis cities (I know that is redundant).  In 66 AD when the Isralites revolted against Rome the Jewish resident of this city were killed by their gentile neighbors.  In the Byzantine period the city was mostly Christian and the population was between 30 and 40 thousand.  This prominence came to an end with the Arab conquest.  Then in 749 BC an earthquake destroyed the city.  Since Israel became a state the area has begun to return to use and the residents are pretty proud of the impressive remains of the ancient city that is and has been uncovered in their city.

A model of ancient Bet She’an

The hump down the middle of the main street covers an impressive sewer system. 

I would love to catch a ride with Dr. Who to see what this place looked like when it was new and thriving.

Shop floors

The first Macy’s department story was perhaps located here.

Pretty and pretty impressive

On our way to our hotel in Jericho we passed back into Palestinian territory.  Just outside of Jericho are the ruins of Hisham’s palace.  It is not absolutely clear who Hisham was nor what took place here.  It almost certainly was built in the first half of the 8^th century AD.  A time when Muslims occupied the land. 

Some of the most impressive and beautiful finds at this site were mosaics that were well preserved.  One of these is the Tree of Life mosaic which was locked for some reason but I got this great picture of a picture.

At the day’s end not to be confused with the Day’s Inn but rather the Oasis Intercontinental at Jericho I found myself in dire need of someone willing to wash my feet.

A good day.