Caesarea Philippi
We had a wonderful breakfast at our hotel consisting of salad, cheese, eggs, breads of savory and sweet varieties, coffee (I don’t know they understand how much coffee Americans tend to drink…), juice and water and then we hopped on the bus for our day.
We started out in Caesarea Philippi which was a Roman occupied city at the time of Jesus. This is also the place where Jesus asks Peter, James, and John, “Who do people say that I am …. Who do YOU say I am?” The area here looks like a lot of ruins that you would see in Italy or Greece as you can see below in the video. There are lots of temples set up to different gods, and so it is no wonder that Jesus asks that question of his disciples.
After some rainy time there (it wasn’t quite as fun), we also celebrated Holy Communion on the site that people sacrificed to the gods and I had the privilege of serving the wine… after that, we got back in the bus and headed to various points around the Sea of Galilee.
Mount of the Beatitudes
Jesus teaches his famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 and in the first part he names the beatitudes where he sits down and teaches the disciples about all the people who are blessed in the kingdom of God. We got to see the view that overlooked the Sea and could imagine Jesus saying those things. There is a church there, which is pictured in the video (there are churches on almost all the holy sites).
Multiplication of the Loaves
The next site that we went to was the site of the multiplication of the loaves, or what we would think of as the feeding of the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. The church that is there has 44 loaves around it with the 5th loaf being at the altar as Jesus is the Bread of Life.
Capernaum
We headed to the next site which was Capernaum, the town where Jesus is said to have preached his famous sermon in Luke 4. The Lord has appointed me to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, freedom of sight to the blind, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Imagine being in that place and hearing those words and then Jesus saying, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. quite the contrast and the angering argument.
Enjoy the video below. None of what I am writing or showing you do this trip justice. I take away today a fun boat ride on the Sea of Galilee as well as how close in proximity these places are to each other and how much you can see of one place at another place.
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