Highlights from first week in the Holy Land, Galilee

After a 13 hour plane ride from Las Angeles to Tel Aviv, not even pouring rain and traffic jams on the freeway could dampen my spirits.  I drove with Larissa Properzi and her kids to the kibbutz where Frank and the BYU students were staying.  It was rainy at first, but then the sky cleared and we enjoyed the trip.  

After almost three hours of driving, we entered the resort at the same time as the tour bus full of BYU students.  Knowing Frank would be on that bus, all other thoughts fled my mind.  I hurriedly and awkwardly parked, hopped out, and rushed toward my eternal sweetie for a long awaited hug and kiss...to the approval and applause of 44 students!  

I spent 6 days in the Galilee with the BYU Jerusalem Center program, touring the northern end of the country.  Here are photo highlights.

The Mount of Beatitudes church - a very rainy day!

Sunset over the Sea of Galilee

Overlook of Gamla, a mountain peak that was once the site of a battle between Romans and Jewish zealots.  Remains of a synagogue are still visible, as is the wall that was breached during the conflict.

At Kursi, commemorating the time when Jesus healed a man possessed of demons.

Overlooking the Sea of Galilee - beautiful sunsets.

Frank teaching at Hazor

Earliest mud-brick arch at Dan - so old it would have been around when Abraham traveled to Dan to rescue Lot. That's old!

Banias Falls - one of the sources of the Jordan River

Peace Garden in Ghajar, a village of Syrian Alawites in Israeli controlled Golan Heights.  They seek to live their philosophy of honoring the dignity of all people, believers in other religions and nonbelievers.  We had a delicious meal at a restaurant here and heard a guide tell the history of the religion and the village.

View from Ghajar into Lebanon.

Caesarea Philippi, also known as Banias, is the location of the source of the Banias river.  Anciently there were many shrines in this area.  Here Jesus asked Peter who he thought Jesus was.  Peter stated, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God."  This must have been a marked juxtaposition considering all the niches and temples and cultic activity entrenched in this area.  

Overlook to the Road to Damascus from the top of Har Bental.

Theater in Caesarea Maritima, the city where Paul was imprisoned, testified before Agripa, and left on a ship for Rome.

Cacti - "Sabra" at Sepphoris.  Sweet inside, prickly outside.

The exquisitely crafted "Mona Lisa of the Galilee" mosaic in Sepphoris.  This city was actively employing craftsmen at a time when Joseph and Jesus may have been working as carpenters or stonemasons based in nearby Nazareth.

Sarcophagus at Beit Shearim, where Judah HaNasi worked for years compiling the Mishnah.  He finished his life's work in Sepphoris but requested to be buried in Beit Shearim.  A stately and extensive network of tombs can still be seen there.

This carved menorah is is over 6 feet tall!

Takeaway:  The history of this area is so complex and rich!  At one stop we may be talking about Abraham, then the next time we get off the bus, we've jumped forward hundreds of years to Peter.  One minute we're talking about border disputes from the current century, then we visit a Mamluk and Crusader fortress.   

But we always circle back around to Jesus Christ.  We see him and his principles running like a golden thread through so much of the history here, even down to the present day.  So much conflict has its roots in religion, and yet it is also religion that can give us the hope and the motivation and even the tools to build bridges toward peace.  "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 14:27  This is so often repeated that it may seem easy, or trite, but at its roots, peace in Christ is a puzzle, a thorny, knotted paradox that like so many of Jesus' sayings, we are meant to struggle with and against so that we are changed in the process.