O, What a Morning!

I had an absolutely glorious experience this morning! With such a difficult day yesterday and no sleep, I fully expected to crash and burn and sleep like a rock, but I guess my natural body clock is stronger than I exoected. I woke up around 2:00 am and could not go back to sleep, so around 3:30 I finally gave up and got up, took my book and went down to the lobby to read (I didn’t want to disturb my roomate).
About 5:30, the sun began to rise, so I went out to the hotel garden for prayer and watched the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee. What an incredible start to the trip! I am sure that there are many things about the trip that I will eventually forget, but I don’t think that will be one of them!



Today’s agenda began with an over view of the lake at the cliffs of Arbel, a high point on the north end of the lake.In the First Century the Jews held off attacking Romans by hiding in the caves on the cliff face, but the Romans eventually won. The view was tremendous! You can see almost the entire lake from up there, but it was hazy, so we only saw about half of it. Our guide is Claudia who is an Arab Christian and took pains to point out that the original Christians who were not Jews were Arabs.

Next was Capernaum, site of Peter’s house and a Third Century basilica built on top of it. There is no modern city there, only an archeological site and a church built and managed by the Franciscans. Peter’s house (so determined by the early church built over it) shows by its size and its proximity to the synagogue that Peter was not the poor fisherman many people often think him to be. His house was large and he loved close to the sunagogue, which would demonstrate a person of influence. The picture that gives is one of Jesus coming and calling a person of wealth and influence to support his ministry. Capernaum was also on a major route to Jerusalem, so many people would have heard about Jesus and spread the word as they went. Even Herod had heard about him. The Romans would be able to see any large crowd of even a few hundred, much less 5,000 from their headquarters in Tiberias. It gives a much different perspective on things than I previously had. To actually stand on the shore and look across gives a sense of the scale, the very small scale, on which Jesus’ life and ministry was carried out. We had St. Peter’s fish for lunch which is a kind of fresh water talapia served with the head on like a trout, and french fries, which were dubbed St. Andrew’s fries, as they went so well with Peter’s fish.



Blessings to all!