What Would Jesus Do?

I know I'm still a bit behind in my posts, but I'll try to get Israel wrapped up quickly so I can move on to my cargo ship trip and quick tour through Europe.

On my last day in the Upper Galilee on the way back down to Tel Aviv, I made a few stops along the way at various spots right around the Sea of Galilee.  According to the bible, this is the region where Jesus did much of his teaching as a grown man.  It's where the loaves and fishes story took place and Jesus walked on water.  My first stop was at Mount Beatitudes where Christ was said to have delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

Luckily I had a map on my phone and could track where we were because I basically had to get off the road in the middle of nowhere.  I still had to walk down a local road about half a kilometer to get to the entrance to the Catholic chapel that now stands on the site.  When I got there I saw that the gate was closed because the grounds close to tourists between noon and 2:00pm.  I had arrived just as they were closing, though there were still some buses lined up by the exit trying to leave.  Just as I was settling down to wait it out and eat the lunch Masha had packed me, someone came to open the gate for the buses and he said I had about 10 minutes if I wanted to go in very quickly.  By the time I got to the actual chapel, the door to the entrance was locked so I just looked around at the grounds and the amazing view of the Sea of Galilee before heading back toward the exit.

On my way out, the man who had let me in drove by and told me that if I waited by the gate (which was once again closed) he would drive me down to the bottom of the hill.  That was very nice of him because he saved me quite a bit of time having to walk several kilometers down switchback roads to the shores of the water below.  He dropped me off at the bus stop and from there I walked over to the Church of the Multiplication where Jesus was said to have turned two fish and five loaves of bread into enough food to feed five thousand people.  By this point, I was pretty hungry so I ate my lunch on a bench outside before going in.  Luckily there was only one of me so no food multiplication was necessary.  The current Catholic church stands built in 1982 stands on the site of two earlier churches.  The interior features a 5th century mosaic floor, which includes a design in front of the altar depicting two fish flanking a basket of bread.  Under the altar is a block of limestone found during an excavation in the 1930s that is supposed to be the stone on which the miraculous meal was laid.

After leaving the church, I walked a short distance down the road to the Church of the Primacy of Saint Peter. This small chapel was built in 1933, incorporating parts of an earlier church from the 4th century.  This is said to be the site where Jesus reinstated Peter as chief among the Twelve Apostles.  I honestly don't know very much about this story so Wikipedia has informed me that "according to tradition this is the spot where Jesus is said to have laid out a breakfast of bread and fish for the Apostles and told Peter to "Feed my sheep" after the miraculous catch, the third time he appeared to them after his resurrection.  So there you have it.  The limestone rock projection where this breakfast was said to have been laid out is still in the interior of the church.  Right outside is a small sandy beach on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, which was shrouded in mist while I was there.

I had considered walking then down the road about three kilometers to the nearby town of Capernaum where there are two ancient synagogues and Jesus kind of based himself while teaching.  Then I realized I would have to walk all the way back and since the day was wearing on I decided to instead head to Tiberias.  I was waiting by the bus stop when a taxi driver pulled up and kept lowering his price until it didn't make much sense not to accept his offer.  I guess he was probably going back that way anyways and figured a few bucks was better than nothing.  He dropped me off at the bus station and I walked through down down to the waterfront.  Tiberias is considered one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities and is also the site of several of Christ's miracles.  On the way to the Sea of Galilee I passed through a small open air museum featuring artwork from local artists.  I basically just ambled along the waterfront for a while, stopping in the Church of St. Peter which commemorates the "First Miraculous Catch of Fish."  It also features a monument dedicated to Polish soldiers of the Third Army who stayed in the area in 1945.

As it started to approach 4:00pm, I knew there was a bus leaving soon that went directly back to Herzliya.  I had thought about trying to go to Nazareth as my final stop, but it was too complicated to try to get there and was getting too late in the day.  As it was, I missed the stop where I needed to change buses once I get near Tel Aviv.  Fortunately, I was able to get on wifi and figure out where I needed to go to catch the right bus so I made it back to Herzliya before it got too late.

For the next few days I took it easy around town, going for a drive with Carrie up north along the coast for a bit on Saturday and then on Monday deciding to go on up to Nazareth, where Jesus spent most of his childhood.  I stopped first at the Basilica of the Annunciation, which incorporates the cave where the Virgin Mary received the news from the Angel Gabriel that she was going to give birth to Jesus.  The current sanctuary was built over the remains of Byzantine and Crusader churches.  There was a service going on down by the grotto in the lower church so I wasn't able to get all the way down close to it.  The upper church features mosaics of the Virgin Mary from countries all over the world, which I thought was interesting.

Walking between the Basilica of the Annunciation and the Church of St. Joseph's Carpentry, which is in the same complex, I was able to see the remains from the archaeological excavations of some of the earlier churches.  The Church of St. Joseph's Carpentry is the historical site of Joseph's carpentry workshop.  There are also some interesting archaeological remains that have been found in the grottoes of this newer building.

All I had was basically a map of Nazareth to go on so I saw some churches listed toward the top of the hillside and decided to head that direction.  I wound my way through the narrow, covered market streets stopping in the Synagogue Church marking the traditional site where Jesus used to preach and made it up to the Basilica of Jesus the Adolescent. 

The church is within a huge school complex and when I tried to actually go inside it was locked.  I had gone in the main interest to the churchyard and thought I would be able to exit out the other side, which turned out not to be the case. I ended up walking around the entire group of buildings and hopping several fences in my efforts to escape.  In the end, I had to go all the way back around to the front and come out the way I had come in.  Nearly 40 minutes later I was finally back on the street.  At least there was a good view of the whole city from up top.

I walked back down the hill a slightly different way and finally found the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, which is where the Eastern Orthodox church believes the annunciation actually took place.  The underground spring that still exists underneath the church is supposedly where Mary was gathering water when Gabriel came upon her.  The water that still runs inside the apse of the church is fed by the nearby St. Mary's spring about 150 yards away.  After leaving the church, I stopped at a souvenir shop that is built over an old bath complex to see if I could get a tour, but it was too much to pay for one person so I decided I would skip it.  It was getting late in the afternoon so I went back down the main road and luckily flagged a bus down as it was about to drive right past the stop.  It would have been a long wait for the next one so I'm glad I was able to get on board.

My trip to Nazareth basically wrapped up my Jesus Trail pilgrimage, though I did in the completely wrong order both chronologically and according to tradition.  I started where Jesus died in Jerusalem, then went to where he was born in Bethlehem, followed by where he taught as an adult in Galilee and finally where he grew up in Nazareth.  Hey, it might have been out of order, but at least it was comprehensive!