Jesus' Hometown (Wednesday, June 30th)

Well we left our little bungalows this morning. It was hard to leave behind. Last night, as a group we sat on the shore and had a time of worship and sharing to close out our time here. We sang the song from Psalm 84, "Better is One Day in Your Courts", and Dr. Stone shared something about that psalm that I had never realized before. He pointed out that it was written by the Sons of Korah who in Numbers 16 challenged Moses and Aaron's authority and because of this, the descendants of the ones that were not swallowed up by the ground were relegated to only keeping the gate of the temple but were not allowed inside to serve as the rest of the Levites were. He also pointed out that as time went on and the house of Korah grew, each man may only have ever had one day of opportunity to do this job and be this close to the temple. And yet this psalmist says that even just that one day, to just guard the gate of the temple and not even get to go inside, was better than a thousand days anywhere else! I challenge you to go back and read that psalm again in that light. Lawson's challenge to us was that even though most of us would love come back again someday and have the opportunity to continue exploring the land, (there is way to much to learn here than can be learned in three weeks!) just to have been here for this time has been an amazing experience that will last the rest of our lives.


This morning after a last long look at the Sea of Galilee and the chance to play with some tiny kittens (you have no idea how hard it was to not take them with me; they were crying pathetically as I walked away) we headed out to Sepphoris. Sepphoris does not enter into the Biblical text at all but it is about 3 or 4 miles from Nazareth and was destroyed sometime before Jesus was born because the Jews there rose up in revolt against Rome. We know that it was being rebuilt during Jesus young years (which we know almost nothing about) and some have wondered whether Joseph, being a builder, may have been involved in rebuilding it. There are some very interesting and beautiful mosaics on the floors of the houses there.

From there we drove on to Nazareth itself (although we only got to drive through the city of Nazareth itself) and took some time to look out over the area around it. From the ridge above the city (Nazareth is kind of down in a bowl) we could see all of the Jezreel Valley as well as Mt. Tabor, Mt. Moreh and Mt. Carmel. We heard the retelling of the story of Deborah and Barak with the scene spread out before us.


We had lunch at a park built around the spring where Gideon had his men drink from to see who he would take into battle. But the best part of lunch was that we got to meet a man named Nabil and his family. Nabil was the pastor of the church of the Nazarene in Nazareth until he left and turned his pastorate over to another pastor to come study at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. Now he is back in Nazareth, still involved in the Nazarene church and teaching at a Palestinian Bible School. He and his family are under a lot of persecution both for being Christian Palestinians and for being in rolls of leadership. Please pray for them!

Our last stop today was Beth Shan. Beth Shan is close to Mt. Gilboa where Saul and Johnathan were killed and the Philistines drug their bodies to Beth Shan and displayed them on the city walls until the people of Jabesh-Gilead (whom Saul had rescued years before) came and cut them down and carried them back to their town. Not much of that city has been excavated but there is an Egyptian governors palace from the days when Egypt controlled the area and just down the hill from it was built the Roman city of Scythoplis. It is impressive to say the least! I walked down Roman streets with their massive columns past the entrance to a temple and thru the open courtyard of the market place. Even after all these years I was impressed by the grandeur of the place. You could not have walked thru this place in it's heyday and not have been overwhelmed by the power and supremacy of Rome. From there we headed home.