Hopefully you have a deep and faithful relationship with God even before those odds come, because undoubtedly they will come. Perhaps in the form of illness, family troubles, financial, even death…are you ready? Yesterday, we went to two contrasting sites, Hezekiah’s tunnel and Masada. Hezekiah trusted in the Lord and from the beginning did what was pleasing to Him. His choice brought about great difficulties and further temptations to choose an easy submissive route to another kingdom or to prepare and faithfully listen to the prophet Isaiah. They knew the Assyrians were coming! It took two years of digging, but by the time the Assyrians arrived, the watering holes outside the city walls were dry and Hezekiah’s tunnel from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Siloam was completed. On the other hand, Jewish Zealots had taken over Masada and made it their fortress against the Roman army as early as 68 AD. The Temple destroyed in 70 AD, the Masada holdout finally gave out in 73-74 AD, with almost 1000 of its occupants choosing death at the hands of their own countrymen over slavery and abuse at the hands of the Romans. “Which would you choose?” concludes the narrator at Masada. I think the choice should be done way before those odds come into your life, don’t you?

in Hezekiah’s tunnel, the cool water above our knees

… the tunnel … and this is the story of the tunnel while …the axes were against each other and while three cubits were left to (cut?) … the voice of a man …called to his counterpart, (for) there was ZADA in the rock, on the right … and on the day of the tunnel (being finished) the stonecutters struck each man towards his counterpart, ax against ax and flowed water from the source to the pool for 1,200 cubits. and (100?)cubits was the height over the head of the stonecutters …

Who is that crazy woman walking along this super steep cliff?

Yep, it’s Pastor Shin! I admit, I didn’t do it!

Thank God for cable cars, recently put into use since 2000. No way, I was going to walk up or down!

Sorry I haven’t posted, but there really is too much to see and the many steps taken, leaves us so tired, until the next morning, where we rise early to do it all over again in another section of the Old city of Jerusalem.

walls of Jerusalem in the background

tombs overlooking the city, including the tombs of three major prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Making friends with Moslems as well. I think we may be the first Koreans from the USA in his restaurant. Great shawarma!

The Jaffa gate area at night!

the marketplace columns in the middle of the Old City

the western wall is packed on the last day of Sukkot!

There was certainly alot on the agenda today, from reflective moments at the annunciation church in Nazareth to the crypt in St. Joseph’s, to pondering Christ’s dispute with the Nazarene’s at Mount Precipice; it was certainly a full day, but nothing could be as tickling as the fish who ate my body in the Jordan river as others were being baptized.

At the foot of Mount Hermon (but make no mistake, you’re still really high up into the mountain), there is an underground freshwater stream that emits from the mountain side. The water gently flows so clearly that you can see swarms of fish. That in itself is interesting, because what in the world are they doing up here? As you follow it’s course, the water flow gets more vigorous until it meets up with the Dan and the Lebanon streams…and boy is that water cold!

This allows you to go off the beaten path or in this case way north to Mount Hermon, where you can play hide and seek in the coolest fortress in all of Israel. Soaring high into the sky, is a massive feat of engineering whose enormous blocks of stone makes you wonder: “how in the world did they get these things on top of each other?” Legend has it, that Nimrod himself may be behind this mighty fortress, so it is aptly called, Nimrod’s Fortress!

When you first see it, it looks like a spaceship! With glass windows all around it, you’re thinking no way that’s Peter’s house. And you’d be right, it’s actually a modern Catholic church built right on top of Peter’s humble abode that you can see from above and from the side. Excavations have revealed fishhooks, Herodian lamps, coins from Agrippa’s rule, Christian graffiti, and prayers referring to Jesus and Peter. Since there was no paste or mortar between the unhewn rocks, it suggests that the roof would have been beams, branches and an earth straw mixture consistent with Mark 2:4 and how the paralytic was let down through the roof. The synagogue next door dates from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but excavators have concluded that the stone floor and the western wall are remains of the synagogue from the time of Jesus. That means that the distance from the sea to the synagogue and Simon’s home is only a few hundred feet. This makes perfect sense if you’re a fisherman, because who’s going to haul a bunch of fish far away. What I still don’t understand is why the synagogue is so close to the sea and literally right next to Simon Peter’s home. I mean we’re talking around 40 feet! Luke’s gospel indicates that a synagogue was built by a Roman officer. Could this be the reason why it’s in the center of town and Peter later goes to visit another officer, Cornelius?

spaceship cathedral on top of Simon Peter’s home

Simon Peter’s circular home in the background

Cathedral sits on top of Simon Peter’s home, where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.

Synagogue right next door! No one can accuse Peter of working to get to worship, it must be less than 40 steps away.

bacon, ham, etc. anything that has to do with pigs due to Levitical laws. As we looked at the cliff, and the burial caves, it became easy to imagine the demons entering the pigs and the whole herd rushing down the side of the cliff into the lake of Galilee and drowning. Excavations have uncovered a monastery at the top, which indicates the importance of the site but you won’t see it unless you make the climb. Lucky for you all, I did.

excavated monastery site where Legion was healed and the demons entered the pigs.

When you first look at the sea of Galilee or Lake Tiberias, it’s pretty big and majestic coming off the hill. Yet today, I see boats on it and I can actually see the boats docking on the other side, so it’s not that big as well. My point being, the crowds could see where the disciples and Jesus were going. So they followed him along the shoreline. See John 6: 1-3. The story of Jesus on the hill feeding the multitudes and sharing the sermon on the mount comes easily to life as you see your surroundings here in the lowest freshwater body lake on Earth. The surrounding of the hills allows the winds to careen down their slopes gathering speed so that sudden forces of incredible velocity can threaten vessels going across. We experienced such winds last night!

Those white dots in the water are boats!

Battles on the plains of Megiddo! They had to be insane! Today hit 100 degrees and it’s the middle of October. If they wore any kind of armor I think the battle lasted 5 minutes. Kill or be killed. A final battle here? Certainly lots of land!

We arrived at the beginning of Sukkot, the feast of tabernacles, where the Jews remember their 40 years of sleeping outside in the wilderness, their deliverance from Egypt and their coming into the promised land. Yet it so much more than that! It also looks forward to the worshipping of Hashem now and not yet. If you look at Leviticus 25:47-48 and the right of redemption and Zechariah 14, we see that all the nations, which means beyond Israel, will eventually come to celebrate Sukkot, when “on that day Hashem will be One, and His Name will be one!” All over Israel, temporary outdoor shelters have been raised in celebration of these holy days. From my perspective, the blinders will have been taken off, the fullness of the Gentiles will have taken place, and the multitude which will be too numerous to count will all be praising God. So celebrate this week! God is covering you! He shelters you and it’s going to be permanent! He loves you!