Day 08 - Jezreel Valley: Nazareth, Megiddo, Mt. Carmel, Caesarea Maritima

This morning we said goodbye to the Sea of Galilee and we started our ascent towards Jerusalem. We have been preparing for the last week for our time in Jerusalem, sitting in the text and being in awe that the Lord has brought us here. We are finally ready! Yesterday, we started thinking about why we need to share our stories and who we need to share them with. Today, we continued those thoughts and were given more pictures and stories to explain to us the importance of sharing what the Lord has done in our lives.

            We started the day off in Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus, discussing what it was like for Jesus to return to his hometown shortly after beginning his ministry. Then we made our way to Megiddo. In Megiddo, we took a look at a story involving Solomon and David. We saw how Solomon was seeking after any worldly security that he could find and David was seeking after God. After Megiddo, we headed to Mt. Carmel where we dug into the story of Elijah and King Ahab. Elijah was calling out the people for standing in the middle, living the best of both worlds, between YHWH and baal. In the mountain rage that we stood in is where God showed his people once again that He is the one and only true God. Finally, we ended the day at Caesarea Maritima. This was the biggest city in Israel 2,000 years ago. Caesarea had everything one could need for the “good life”(food, drink, entertainment, women, etc.) We learned that this was the place that Philip the evangelist (Acts 8) called home. We also learned that Peter came to Caesarea to preach the Gospel and the first ever Gentile became a Christian. Not only Peter, but Paul also ended up in Caesarea and eventually ended up in prison there. Paul came to tell his story and to proclaim the Gospel everywhere he went.

            There is so much that we can learn from our time walking in the land today. In Nazareth we asked ourselves, what are we going to do with Jesus? We can either believe who Jesus says he is, or we can kick him off the cliff just as the people of Nazareth tried to do. In Megiddo, we wrestled with whether we are living for earthly security or if we are finding our security in the Lord and what he has for us. On Mt. Carmel we sat under the weight of the idols the Israelites worshiped and how similar we look to them today. Do we have the same amount of belief in our God as Elijah had in his? Our God is greater than any idol we could ever bow down to. Finally, we saw the impact that sharing your story can have while looking at the lives of Phillip, Peter and Paul at Caesarea. They were not afraid to share their stories, so what holds us back today? Our own comfort? Our lack of faith in our God? Let’s be a people who are bold and courageous in our faith and our willingness to share the good news of Jesus Christ!