Fire, Water, and Wine

Thursday 30-October: Cesaria, Mount Carmel, the Plains of Mediggo, Nazareth, Cana, Tiberias

The first day had us in the Purple Eggs (the nickname for our tour buses) heading north, out of the morning traffic in Tel Aviv. Along the Mediterranean, we stopped in Cesaria, which Herod built in order to make himself rich. He was an amazing leader with great vision and had the Mediterranean port built by putting huge blocks of stone in the sea and building up a natural harbor, with the opening facing north, protecting it from the southern currents. Along with the ideal port for the largest trading ships at the time, all the amenities of a great city were available, including a seaside hippodrome, as horse racing was the most popular sport, and a 3-tiered amphitheater. An aqueduct brought water from a spring 15 miles away with only a 2 inch drop in elevation.
For us pilgrims, its significance lay in that it was the first place that a Roman was converted to Christianity. The apostle Simon Peter was in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, when he was told that 2 men would come looking for him and ask him to go with them to Cesaria. We drove on the bus at least an hour, so that was quite a long walk – two days per the Bible. Cornelius, a Roman centurion, also had a vision while praying that he should send for Simon Peter. Once Peter arrived and began telling them the gospel, they believed before he even finished, and subsequently his entire household was baptized. So here was where Christianity began to infiltrate the Roman Empire, culminating in 306 AD with the ascension of Constantine the Great as the first Christian emperor and declaration of Rome as a Christian city.

Carmel means “God’s vineyard” (“El” is God in Hebrew), and driving inland from the sea, the Purple Eggs climbed Mount Carmel. The scenery was lovely, with low trees sheltering bright green grass and white stones and rocks. It was a gradual climb for about 20 minutes or more, but the other side of the mountain is quite steep and overlooks the Plains of Mediggo. Here occurred one of God’s most incredible demonstrations of power and response to prayer. (This is from 1Kings 18:16-45, so you know that I didn’t make this up!) The prophet Elijah challenged 450 priests of the pagan god Baal, who now counted the Israelites among the congregation, to demonstrate who worshipped the true and powerful god. Was it the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Or Baal? So they climbed Mt. Carmel with their sacrifices and altars and a trail of Israelites following behind. The priests of Baal sacrificed and prayed and wailed and cut themselves and did anything else they could think of in order to get some demonstration of supernatural power. And nothing. All afternoon, and nothing. So finally Elijah had the people construct the altar according to the laws Moses had written and placed the sacrifice on it. Then he instructed them to dig a moat around the altar, fill it with water, and douse the offering and altar three times with water. And then he called on God to show His power. Immediately, fire fell from the sky, devouring the sacrifice and altar and water so that they disappeared in an instant and the ground became dry dust again.

Standing on the rooftop patio of a Catholic monastery at the top of Mount Carmel, I began to think about my prayers. Elijah succeeded several times in demonstrating God’s power to the people, yet in the New Testament of the Bible, James writes that Elijah was a man just like any other. There are enough other scriptures (enough to be longer than my blog!) that tell me that I have the amazing power of God and ability to demonstrate it, so that my head knows it but I don’t really believe it in my heart. Are my prayers really a time of respite from the world to be with God? Not often. The timing needs to be just right, the sofa comfortable, the lighting agreeable, and the air scented with perfume of jasmine flowers outside my window…. So, no, I don’t usually remember how wonderful and resuscitating my prayer time can be. And when I get on my knees at night and say prayers for at least 5 people, do I have the confidence that my prayers will manifest in their lives? Let’s just put it this way – when they do, God has to knock me over the head to make me remember that I prayed for them. My prayer scorecard is biased, thinking of the “negative” or “unanswered” prayers while struggling to remind myself what miracles God has done for me and those I’ve prayed for. And I pray, too, that God will sometimes hide His wonderful answers to my prayer in order to keep my ego from exploding. Well, this is getting too personal and embarrassing, so let’s move on…

…down to the Plains of Megiddo. Tel Megiddo (“tel” in Hebrew meaning hill) was built upon 26 layers of ruins of previous cities from ancient times, so it’s quite the archaeological dream. It was, of course, much easier to build on existing ruins and foundations since the raw material was already there and the land cleared. This site was popular because it was right at the end of the pass through the Carmel mountains and into the Valley of Jezreel. It has become known as the place of Armageddon because it was also known (in Greek, I think) as Har-Magedon, which became Armageddon in English. In the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible and written by John, one of Jesus’ favorite disciples, the final battle between Satan (“The Adversary”, “The Accuser”) and Jesus will occur here. While Mount Carmel, visible from Tel Megiddo, was prophesied to be a place of respite, and in fact has had no battle taking place there, the Plains of Megiddo have witnessed many. Fifteen centuries before Jesus was here, the Egyptians under Pharaoh Thutmose III waged war against the Canaanites. In 609 BC, Egypt again fought Judea here, and even as recently as 1918, the British clashed here with the forces of the Ottoman Empire. Standing on the ruins of city walls and ancient altars of Tel Megiddo, I was reminded of the fact that God, with a word, could just destroy Satan and his forces here and bring us back to Him. And I was reminded again of the fact that He will, in His time.

And finally, our daily bread, cooked in an outdoor brick oven, accompanied by hummus and roasted chicken and lentil soup. We were in Nazareth, the childhood home of Jesus. It is now the capital and largest city in the North District of Israel, though the largest population group is Arab. Nazareth was originally in the land given to the Arabs in the UN’s partition plan of 1947, but then fell into Israel’s borders after the 1948 War for Independence. Our tour group got its first taste of the differences between an Arab and a Jewish section of town, and they were immediately evident to us. Itay often referred to the disorganized parking seen in Arab districts, but the stores, dress, and general disarray and dirtiness were also give-aways. I felt like I was back in Morocco. Entering Nazareth began a conversation with Itay about Israeli Arabs, and included mention that they don’t serve in the IDF, which is compulsory for 3 years consecutively and then 2 months per year until the age of 40. While the Jewish Israelis don’t trust the Arabs and don’t necessarily want them in the IDF, and while the Arabs certainly don’t want to serve, this issue deepens the divide between the two groups.

In Jesus’ time, Nazareth was a tiny town, with a population of maybe 400 to 500 people. It was such an unlikely place for the Messiah to come from that Nathaniel, one of Jesus’ future disciples, exclaimed “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46) As Pastor Daniel says, it’s like a national revolution starting in a one-gas-station town on Route 66. But Jesus did grow up there, and after starting His ministry, avoided going back. Often our families and closest friends don’t believe we can really become what God wants us to be because they’ve seen us grow (and hopefully grow up!) and have put us in a box of predictability. I think when Jesus said that we would have to reject our fathers and mothers to follow Him, He was referring to this, not a rejection of the commandment to honor your father and mother. So Jesus could not do many miracles in Nazareth because the people had little faith in Him. Capernaum became the center of His ministry, so with full stomachs and nice pictures of the view, the Purple Eggs rolled on out of Nazareth.

On our way to the city of Tiberius on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, we passed through Cana, the town of Jesus’ first miracle. He and Mary, his mom, were at a wedding reception when they witnessed the horrific situation of being out of wine. Mary, I guess with all she’d been through with Jesus over the previous 30 years, told him to do something, and though He protested (“My time has not yet come”), when your mom tells you to do something, you really probably ought to. And she wasn’t taking any of His divine excuses when she told the servants to do whatever Jesus said. So He caved and had them bring 6 jugs of water (my pastor in Cannes, James, recently did a sermon on this and estimated that the 6 jugs equated to about 520 bottles of wine – nice!). When the master of the feast was given a glass, he exclaimed that it was better than any of the wine served earlier. The two churches in Cana, who both claim to be built on the site of the wedding reception, are now the favorites for couples to renew their wedding vows. All day we were wondering what our guides, Itay and Nir, believed, because they both knew both Old and New Testament scriptures and Israeli history in depth, but were Jewish by birth. However, Itay gave us a clue as we drove thru Cana by saying “yes, I heard Jesus made some good wine”.

By sunset we got our first view of the Sea of Galilee and set up camp at the luxurious resort of Gai Beach (“gai” meaning valley in Hebrew) right on the water in the city of Tiberias. It was a secular city at the time of Jesus, and He didn’t visit here, though John the Baptist did. At the fork in the road just north of Tiberias, Jesus continued north along the water’s edge to Capernaum, the center of His ministry.