In The Foot Steps of Jesus
Those of us who went on the pilgrimage to the Holy Land had a memorable experience. We appreciated your prayers for us while we were away. One of the highlights for many of us was our time on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee where so much of Jesus’ ministry and teaching took place. Now when we read and hear about the places like those in today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, these places are no longer two dimensional and black and white on a page but three dimensional and filled with color. Listen to Matthew 4:12-25. “Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.
May 22, 2011
Matthew 4:12-25, In The Foot Steps of Jesus
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”
Our pilgrimage to the Holy Land was a good reminder that our Christian faith is firmly rooted in history. Jesus was a real person, the places he taught and healed and stayed are genuine. Some Christian pilgrimage sites have stronger historical and archeological support than others; however there is no doubt our faith is rooted in a real person who lived in a particular place. Part of why some of us enjoyed Capernaum which is where Jesus made his home after he left Nazareth is that it is in ruins– it remains as it has been for over 1300 years. One can see the remains of Peter’s house and the foundation of the synagogue where Jesus is likely to have attended and taught. They are no more than thirty yards apart. At the Israel Museum I saw the ossuary (a stone vessel) containing the remains of Caiaphas the High Priest who questioned Jesus the night before his crucifixion as well as a stone that had the name of Pontius Pilate. These historical touchstones confirm the existence of people we read about in the Gospels. The museum also has a stone which mentioned the house of David and silver amulets 400 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls with the scripture from Numbers 6:24-26, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
Being pilgrims going to the Holy Land, I suspect we had similar feelings to the millions of Christians who have traveled there for centuries. There was excitement, anticipation, and perhaps a little anxiety about what we would find. We knew some people were concerned about our safety. These are nothing new. Tourism is down at least 60-70% in the Middle East because of the turmoil in several countries, but we were totally safe everywhere we went and we witnessed no incidents of any kind. In both Israel and Jordan the people were very grateful for our presence. In Madaba, Jordan we saw a 7th century mosaic map of Jerusalem and the surrounding area in the floor of St. George’s Church. We had the opportunity to stand on Mount Nebo where Moses saw the Promised Land and we looked south all the way across the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea and west toward the Mediterranean Sea. We sang How Great Thou Art and took it all in. At the site in Jordan where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist we remembered and renewed our baptism as we stepped into the Jordan River and prayed and sang. Stopping by the Dead Sea some folks went for a quick float then we went on to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. These scrolls included almost all of the books in the Old Testament. They were produced by the Essenes, a community living in the desert that was wiped out by the Roman legions on their way to Jerusalem around the year 70 AD.
We visited Nazareth which is now a good size city and not the small backwater community it was when Jesus lived there. There is a huge church of the Annunciation marking the place where Mary received the message from the angel Gabriel about bearing a son. We also went to Cana where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding, the first of his signs according to John’s Gospel (John 2:1-11). The area around Galilee was more beautiful than I imagined and we saw the birds, flowers, hills and trees that fill so much of Jesus’ teaching. Saturday, May 14 I awoke to the sound of thunder which was awesome because that was the morning we were taking a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. After reading about Jesus calming storms that seemed perfect and I know many of us felt being in a boat on the Sea of Galilee especially when we just sat in silence for four minutes was very special. When the guy went shooting past us on a jet ski it did break the mood for just a moment.
Last Sunday we worshiped on the shore of the Sea of Galilee with a community of Benedictine brothers who are mostly from Germany. Their community is in Tabgha the site of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes where Jesus took a few loaves and two fish and fed more than 5,000 people. Brother Matthias and his community couldn’t have been more thoughtful and welcoming in the hospitality they shared with us. They didn’t want anyone to feel unwanted or like we were a burden to them. Our group and a group from Germany came for worship. Jill and I were invited to read scriptures in English and two of the German guests also took part. There were more people than they anticipated though so during the Lord’s Supper they ran out of wine. Because we were in Tabgha and not Cana, there was no miracle producing more wine, but there were still wafers and that was sufficient for us.
We had the remarkable experience with the Franciscan brothers at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem of singing Adeste Fidelis (O Come All Ye Faithful) right in the Nativity Grotto where Jesus was born while holding candles with the smell of incense all around. Finally we arrived in Jerusalem arguably the most contested and sought after place on the face of the earth. It is important to the faith of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We walked from Mount Zion to the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus did. We prayed in the Garden. We walked up the hill inside the walls of the city and thought as we walked about what Jesus did for us as we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where for at least 1600 years Christian pilgrims have come to pray and worship and remember Jesus’ death on the cross and the joy of the resurrection. We were moved each day seeing the incredible diversity of God’s people from all over the world coming to deepen and express their faith. I encourage you to ask the people you know who went about their experience. One member who had a little trouble keeping up with all our walking so much of which was up and down hills remarked that she was going to tell her friends she, “ran today where Jesus walked.”
Our trip to Israel and Jordan was a Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land. However, there was no ignoring the incredibly difficult, painful, and complicated situation that exists between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Among the key issues that must be resolved are recognition of Israel’s right to exist, borders, Israeli settlements, control of East Jerusalem, the Gaza strip, the West Bank, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. It is very complex and there is a lack of trust and unwillingness to compromise on both sides. During our pilgrimage we met with a number of Palestinian Christians. Peter our guide and Kareem our bus driver in Israel are also Palestinian Christians. The Palestinians who spoke to us are frustrated that American policy in their view seems to blindly support Israel and ignores the plight of the Palestinians and especially Palestinian Christians who share our faith. I have to confess that I have not thought much about how difficult it is for Christians in the Holy Land. The number of Christians is plummeting because of the lack of opportunity and the pressures they face everyday that have led so many to leave. What will happen to the faith and all the sites we visited if there are no Christians left to worship and witness in the land where Christianity began? What good are “holy stones” without “living stones” – Christians who are carrying on our faith? Palestinian Christians are also in a difficult place between the Jewish and Muslim populations. They are vastly outnumbered by the Muslims although both groups are Arab. All of us would find it hard to practice and sustain our faith over there in the conditions they face. I was struck by the fact that one man in Bethlehem which is five or six miles from Jerusalem has not been to that city in 18 years because he refuses to have to ask for a permit. It was easier for us who live 5,000 miles from Jerusalem to enter the city than people who were born and live just a few miles away.
It is hard to express the feelings many of us had driving into Bethlehem the city of our Lord’s birth which is surrounded by a 22 foot wall covered with graffiti art and topped with wire. To enter Bethlehem one has to pass through an armed check point. It is like driving into an open prison or perhaps East Berlin before the wall came down. A saying someone had painted out the wall that stood out was, “Once a human rights teacher was born in Bethlehem.” The Jews need a secure place to live and prosper in peace and so do the Palestinians. There needs to be mutual recognition of this truth. The Jews and Palestinians are blood brothers and share the same father, Abraham. Continuing the sin of Cain who killed his brother Abel is not the answer. Treating one another with dignity would be a good place to start.
Thursday evening, our final night in Israel, President Obama gave a speech about the need for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Jill and I heard the president’s voice coming from televisions as we walked through the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem on our way to pray one last time at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At the Church, we arrived just in time for an evening service. The priests were racing through the service as quickly as words could be spoken. At the exact same time, at the Mosque of Omar which is right next door, the Muslim evening prayers blaring over their loudspeaker were drowning out the words of the Greek Orthodox priests. Throughout our pilgrimage I found the broadcasting from the mosques to be really in your face and the fact that the first one was around 4:00 am every morning was more than a little annoying. The whole time we were there I only saw one person actually stopping to pray while the noise was coming from the minarets.
Traveling to the Holy Land, I came home thinking it is both the Holy Land and the unholy land. Jerusalem is arguably the most sacred of places on the whole earth and also perhaps the city where throughout history human sinfulness, thirsts for power, violence and selfishness have been displayed like no other. On a positive note, many of the religious leaders we met like Abbott Benedict at the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion, Father Fergus Clark at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Bishop Shomely at the Latin Patriarchate all had clear, deep penetrating eyes that radiated peace, love, and hospitality as did their words and deeds. Their presence and commitment is cause for hope. I wish our people and our church could practice hospitality like the people who welcomed us.
My prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was that God would give me the courage to do whatever the Lord wants me to do and to do it with love and humility. I am convinced more than ever that those of us who claim the name of Jesus Christ must be people who are motivated by love and work for peace, justice, and reconciliation between people and God. Thinking about the whole experience and reflecting on Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection one cannot escape the fact that Jesus embodied and came to bring, love, peace and reconciliation. His purpose was and remains to build bridges and not walls between different groups of people and between humanity and our Creator.
It is remarkable to think that the words Jesus said 2,000 years ago mostly in an area perhaps ten miles in diameter on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee have spread all over the world. Houses, buildings, cities, peoples, civilizations and empires have risen and fallen and disappeared over the centuries. The Sea of Galilee, the hills, and the words of Jesus remain. With all that has changed in the world, the struggle of faith today is similar to what it was in Jesus’ day; we’re still called to be instruments of God’s love and peace as we follow Christ.