The Caesar Hotel is right beside the Sea of Galilee. We had a beautiful morning to board our boat and sail out into the middle of the sea. I tried to imagine what it would have been like to see Jesus walking across the water or seeing Him stand in the ship and order the winds and waves to cease. We sang several songs and listened as Pastor Nason challenged us through the account of Peter walking on the water. It was truly moving to think that we were in the place where our Lord had sailed and spent so much time. We were able to see in the distance the home of Mary Magadalene where Jesus had cast out her demons and in the distance beyond that and to the north we could see the Golan Heights where Syria spent years shelling Israeli fisherman. We could also see the Valley of Winds which has been the cause of many of the spontaneous and fierce storms that pop up.
After coming to shore on the far side of the water, we boarded our bus and headed to several spots. Our first stop was the Mount of the Beatitudes. As with many of the stops in the Holy Land, this is a traditional spot. There we read the Beatitudes and prayed. It was amazing to think that Jesus had been so near or even right there when preaching many of His sermons to the multitudes.
Next we went to The supposed place where Jesus met the disciples after His death. We were able to stop and read John 21 and then spent a little bit of time on the shore. I can imagine as Jesus asked Peter about how much he loved Him that Peter could not only see the fish and fishing boats, but also all of the surrounding villages and ports. “Lovest thou me more than these?” What a powerful question that implied more than just the conversation and fish that lay near them. Peter’s love needed to be more than just friendship and it needed to supersede anything that had to do with fishing and materialism. It needed to be the selfless agape love that he had the privilege of displaying by his martyring.
We continued to Capernaum, the home of Peter and, the home base of Jesus while He ministered in this region. How awesome to stand in the synagogue that stood over the old synagogue in which Jesus actually stood and taught. It was a moving and humbling experience.
We had lunch by the side of the sea at an open air restaurant where many of our group experienced the St. Peter’s Fish plate. It was very good, but to our disappointment no one found a coin in the mouth of their fish.
After lunch, we boarded our bus and continued our trip by driving around the north side of the sea and then south toward Beth Shean. We passed by the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida. Cities which Jesus cursed in Matthew 11 (Capernaum was the third). None of them to this day exist but as ruins. We read the Scripture from Luke 10 as we passed by the ruins and were reminded that God keeps His word.
Arriving in Beth Shean, we had a stark change in heart and attitude as we drove by the outer edge of its uncovered ruins. It was there that we passed the amphitheater where many Jews and Christians were slaughtered in the first century. We went from the heights of Christian heritage to the darkest hour that many suffered. What a reminder of the passage when Jesus taught us that the servant is not greater than his master. Just as He suffered, so did many of His early followers. Beth Shean was the capital of Decapolis, a league of ten Greco-Roman cities on the east side of the sea of Galilee. It was a truly wicked city and is not a wonder that it is never mentioned that Jesus visited there.
We visited the theater and read the only Biblical account where the city was mentioned, the death of King Saul. It was here that his body and the body of his sons were hung at the city gates. After reading and meditating, we had a group sing on the stage while the group listened from the highest existing level. They could be clearly heard! What a feat of engineering.
As we walked through the ruins of the city, we talked about the majesty and beauty in which it existed. It was a place that would be very attractive to someone coming from a small village like Bethsaida or Bethlehem. Filled with splendor and architecture, places of worship to Tyche, Pan, and Dionysius, and every pleasure that the heart could want, Beth Shean was a place that could swallow up the heart and mind of a believer or faithful Jew of that day and leave them with the emptiness that this world gives at the end of its pleasures.
It made the apostle John’s charge come alive, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” How easy it is for us to get caught up in the beauty and pleasure of this world. Just as easy as it would have been in the days of the early Christians.
We left and headed back to our hotel and will get up and head toward Nazareth tomorrow, our first stop…
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