Day 08 - Driving Through the Story

Today was a transition day.

We said goodbye to the Sea of Galilee and made our way to our destination of the evening, Jerusalem. Along the way, we drove through history, literally.

When you drive across the Jezreel Valley, from Beit Shean all the way over to the coastal plain, Caesarea Maritima, you pass through at least twenty five different biblical stories. It is like a theater of theology. It is a panorama of Scripture.

We could not turn the pages of our Bibles fast enough as we referenced and talked through the stories as we simply drove through the Jezreel Valley.

Here, in the Jezreel Valley:

• Deborah summoned Barak and watched God overturn the powers of the day.

• Gideon gathered his army and learned that victory does not come by strength or numbers.

• Saul spiraled into fear, consulted the medium at Endor, and fell on Mount Gilboa.

• Elijah confronted false worship, ran ahead of Ahab’s chariot, and spoke judgment.

• Jezebel was thrown down and the house of Ahab came to an end.

• Elisha walked through villages like Shunem, received hospitality, prayed, and watched God raise a woman’s son from the dead.

• Josiah, one of Judah’s most faithful kings, lost his life at Megiddo.

• Hosea later spoke the name “Jezreel” as both a warning soaked in blood and a promise filled with hope.

• Jesus, in nearby Nain, stopped a funeral procession, interrupted death itself, and raised a widow’s son from the dead, deliberately echoing what Elisha had done on the other side of Mount Moreh.

All of it layered into one valley.

We then made our way to the top of Mount Carmel. Looking down on the Jezreel Valley below is a breathtaking landscape, but also a sobering reality. Down below there, just in front of Tel Megiddo, more battles have been fought, more swords have been swung, and more blood has been shed in that valley than perhaps any other place in history.

The Jezreel Valley in ancient times was the superhighway of the ancient world.

You control Megiddo, you control the valley.

You control the valley, you control the trade.

You control the trade here, you controlled the world.

Battles go back to the Middle Bronze Age, with Egypt duking it out with the native peoples of the land around 1457 BC, and continue all the way up to 1918, when World War I spilled blood on that same battlefield. At the very end of the Bible, Scripture references Har Megiddo, Armageddon, a name drawn directly from this city and this valley.

As we stood on Mount Carmel, we were reminded of the spiritual battle that we are in as well. But the battle today is often fought in the realms of media, entertainment, ideas, and culture. The battlegrounds have shifted, but the struggle for allegiance has not.

That reality followed us as we walked through the Roman city of Caesarea Maritima, made famous by Herod the Great and his grandeur, innovative and ingenious architectural design. Here he created a false harbor, an artificial harbor with hardening breakwaters deep in the water, and even a freshwater swimming pool out in the ocean at his coastal palace. Just beneath this palace complex, archaeologists have discovered in recent years a first-century prison underneath part of this very area. For years, scholars believed that Paul was held somewhere in and around Caesarea. Now we know there was a prison dating to the first century directly beneath this palace complex, the very prison where Paul was likely held for some two years, as recorded in the book of Acts.

Today was breathtaking.

Today, we drank in Scripture.

When you step into the world of the Bible, the words of the Bible come to life. 

Jerrell