Jesus Day!

5.25.08
EVENTS OF THE DAY

My highlight location of the day was Capernaum. But before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you about an awesome discovery that was made. When the water was low, a couple of fishermen found a 1st century fishing boat! It was quite an intensive restoration that took over 10 years, and it was an amazing thing to see. You can read more about it here.

Back to Capernaum. Even though it was extremely "touristy," I felt close to Jesus there. It was really the first place I felt that I was very close to him in a location. But when you find yourself standing in the synagogue he taught it, from the place he would have stood, it's amazing. We also saw what was most likely Peter's house. What was so amazing about that was it had been expanded to incorporate a house church. Rather than being a small little house, there were rooms and rooms added on. They made their family larger. It struck me that it was so organic, so raw and full of Christ. I think that's why I loved Capernaum. It felt raw and full of Christ.

We also went to Korizim, the likely place of the Sermon on the Mount. There is the tourist location that advertised as the location, but one of the benefits to having a prof that really studies this stuff is that you don't get swallowed up in all the hoopla. This city was a welcome change in ruins. The building materials are completely different in Galilee. They used basalt from the lava flow rather that limestone. So instead of staring at pale brown rocks, we got dark black rocks. I thought it was pretty. One of the awesome lessons pointed out during our teaching time was that Jesus spoke as "one having authority." He didn't name drop a rabbi like other teachers did. They would say, "Rabbi Hellel says..." But he said, "I say to you..." Awesome.

We went to Bethsaida, which I felt was a total disappointment. There wasn't anything particularly interesting. I think it was because our prof had dug here 2 years ago and was very cynical of their "findings." It put a sour taste in my mouth. One of the most memorable quotes of the trip happened here, "Archaeology proves nothing." Makes me wonder why we're doing this, but he pointed out a very important fact. You can make archaeology say things it doesn't say, so when someone says they found proof of something archaeologically, it isn't proof but evidence. It's very different.

The last stop was Kursi, the possible location of two different miracles. One was the healing of the demoniac where Jesus cast the demons into the pigs and then into the sea. The other was the feeding of the 5000. I was exhausted by this point, but the location and flowers were beautiful and inspiring.

Today was a day full of Jesus. I loved it!