June 13, Friday - Merry Christmas!

It may get difficult to keep up with things for the next few days.  We are now in the Sea of Galilee area and not only was today a busy day but I know the next few ones will be very busy too.  Coupled with no internet connection for part of last night I’m still catching up from yesterday.  I did finish yesterday’s blog.  If you looked at it any time before noon on Friday (the 13^th J) you probably did not see all the pictures.  I have all of those up there now.  I’ve also decided to start listing at the bottom of the day’s blog whether or not I’ve finished the text and photos so you know if you should check back later.

Main Cave area

Ok, on to today’s adventures!  We covered 6 different sites and still walked 4.5 miles on top of that so we were busy, busy, busy.  One of the things John normally does not do is to visit any of the churches.  He wants us to get a sense of how things were in the time of Jesus, or whoever the subject for the site may be.  So instead of visiting the church of the nativity as a group, he took us to a similar type of cave this morning.  These types of caves can be found all around the area.  The best way to describe how they look is that they are similar to a large pita bread cut in half and opened up.  They have a wide opening, lowish ceiling, and do not extend that far back.

'Manger' area similar to where Jesus was born!

The purpose is to provide a sheltered area for the sheep and they often had a water trough cut into the rock where the shepherd could put water for them.  As you can imagine it was not the cleanest of places with a rather distinctive odor.  It was here that we discussed Jesus’ birth.  We started by focusing on when it might have taken place.  The only thing we know for certain is that it was not on Dec 25^th.  I won’t go into detail about how that date got chosen, but generally birthdays were not considered significant enough to be mentioned by date.  But there are a lot of clues as to when it might have been.  There is a 5 mile stretch of land near Bethlehem specifically called ‘the fields’.  It is used for growing barley and wheat.

Entrance to the 'pita bread' cave

Once they are done harvesting the wheat, the shepherds are allowed to bring their sheep into the fields to finish cleaning up what is left.  Kind of a win-win situation in that the farmers get their fields cleaned and fertilized and the shepherds have an abundance of things for their sheep to eat so they don’t have to take them all around to find enough to eat (remember how barren the hills around there normally are).

The bible also says they were keeping watch over their sheep at night.  Normally they are kept in a rock walled pen at night and the shepherds can then sleep.  However just prior to major feast days they are required to constantly watch the sheep which will be used for sacrifice to ensure that they stay pure.  So based on these clues we know it would be after harvest which puts it in the June-Nov timeframe.  In the Sept-Oct time there are 3 feasts (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkoth).  John feels it was at the time of Sukkoth that Jesus was born, but at 11 at night I can’t recall why of the 3 he felt that was the one (he did his masters thesis on the birth of Jesus so I’m sure there is good reason), but I’ll ask tomorrow and post an update.  (Update: John feels it was Sukkoth because that is the feast of first fruits and when they pray that God will provide what they need and Jesus is living water. But it could be any of these 3 feasts and not change the message that Jesus came to show us how to live in the Father.)

So we have a date, as for the place we are fairly certain that the church of the Nativity does mark the spot because when Romans took over the area the local people had already been honoring that site as the location for his birth (they were also honoring the site where the church of the Holy Sepulchre stands as the place of his death, burial, and resurrection).  But the main points that John wanted to bring out is that there could not have been a more humble (think dirty, stinky) place for the Messiah to have been born.  But he loved us enough to come to us as a most lowly person to show us that we are all capable of following in his steps.  We ended our visit to the cave by singing Christmas carols.

Well and Manger still in use

The Judea n Wilderness

From here we moved further into the ‘wilderness’ to a location thought to be the area where Jesus went to after his baptism by John.  It says he fasted and prayed for 40 days, after which he was tempted.  40 is the number almost always used to symbolize a period of preparation and it is during this time that Jesus prepares to begin his ministry.  We also see in the bible that after the preparation time is a period of temptation (kind of like finals after you have been studying).  We discussed how God tests us so we know our strengths but the devil tempts us in our weaknesses to try to get us to fail.  The challenge is to recognize our strengths in order to resist giving in to our weaknesses.

We Hike along

It was now about noon and we were about to begin our big hike for the day.  I’m guessing it was easily in the upper 90s if not hotter.  We were getting ready to hike about 2 ½ miles along the Jericho road down to Jericho.  John gave us 3 options – take the bus down to the meeting place, ride a donkey along the trail, or walk it.  We had some people for each option.  I decided to walk it.  This was the one hike from the last trip that I had not been able to finish (I took a donkey ride for the last part last time).  I was determined to do it this time.  I might have gone the donkey option if we were walking from Jericho back to this spot.  That is what we did last time and it is up hill going that way – with the steepest part right at the end.  But even though this was the down hill direction it was still a tough hike.  There is no shade along the way and you are generally carrying extra water with you so that also weighs you down. 

About 1/2 way along

Jericho in the distance

The significance of this hike is that this is one of the main routes to Jerusalem and one that we know Jesus walked on his way there just before he died.  This is also believed to be the road used in the parable of the good Samaritan.  In that story it talks about how 2 different priests walked past the man who had been beaten up and left by the side of the road.  Walking this road you see it is pretty much just a narrow path (maybe 3 ft wide) with a steep drop-off on one side and the hill going steeply up on the other.  This means they would have had to step over him to get past him.  People of the day would have understood this because they also would have used this road frequently. 

It was awesome to walk this same path as Jesus and his disciples and contemplate what they might have thought about or discussed as they walked along.

Everyone did a great job in finishing the hike and I was pleased to have been able to do it and still have some energy left at the end! 

An old Sycamore Fig

Once we arrived in Jericho we refreshed with our now standard pita bread, humus, meat, and cheese sandwiches and headed off to central Jericho.  Our first stop was at a large sycamore fig tree.  This figures into the gospels as the place where Zacchaeus, a tax collector and short man, climbs a sycamore fig tree so he can see Jesus as he passes through town.  When Jesus calls him down to say he plans to eat at his house, the Sadducees (many of them liked to live here) talked about how wrong it was for him to eat with a sinner (they did not think highly of tax collectors).  Jesus uses this opportunity to explain how he came to save sinners and at the same time used parables to scold the Sadducees for not being faithful to the laws passed down from Moses.  Our faith lesson centered around the fact that we do not need to be always worrying that we are being as productive for God as we can, just that we be faithful to how he wants us to live our lives and He will do the rest.

We Circle Jericho

Jericho was the first city the Israelites encountered as they entered the Promised Land.  The city was (like most cities) surrounded by a high wall for protection.  God instructed them to walk around the city once a day for 6 days on on the 7^th day, walk around it 7 times and then blow their horns and shout to God.  They did that and the walls fell down and they captured the city.  We began by walking around Jericho ourselves.  It only took about 15 minutes so imagine how many blocks you could walk around in that time and that is about the size if the old city of Jericho.

Jericho Ruins

Once they captured the city God told them to not take anything from it and to continue on into the Promised Land.  This would have been a hard thing for them to do because they have just spent 40 years in the desert and Jericho is an oasis town with lots of trees and probably great farmlands.  But God asked them to trust him that he had better things in store for them.  The faith teaching is that we too should give God the first/best we have whether it be our time, talents, or treasures as a way of showing that we trust Him to in turn give us even more of what we need.  It made us think about how many times our religion is something we fit in when we have the time rather than fitting in the rest of our day around living our faith.

Fountain from Elisha Spring

Elisha Spring

Another major event to have happened here is that Jericho was the city where Elisha returned to after Elijah was taken up in chariots of fire (not the movie).  He finds that the water is bad for drinking in the town spring.  He asks for salt, throws it into the spring, and the water is now clear and clean.  It continues to flow with fresh water today.  We ended our day of teachings by sitting alongside this spring and letting our feet enjoy the cool water.

The end of day 6.  Today was one of the longer hiking days with 4.5 miles of hiking.  That means the trip total is now 21.75 miles.  Tomorrow should put us over the 25 mile point! Not that distance is any indication of how much we see or learn – just another aspect of the trip.

(NOTE: The text and pictures are finished! )