Day 06 - Baha'i Gardens, Acco, Rosh Hanikra

Today was an altogether different kind of day than we’ve had so far. We stepped out of biblical history and into more modern history, but each site still had a lot to teach us about our faith as followers of Jesus. We left our hotel in Nazareth and headed west towards the Mediterranean Sea. Our first stop was Haifa.

Haifa isn’t a biblical site per se, but it’s situated on the northeastern slope of the Mount Carmel mountain range. It’s a port city and the people there work mostly blue-collar, industrial jobs. In the middle the concrete buildings, however, sits the gorgeous Baha’i Gardens.

The Baha’i faith was established in Iran in the middle of the 19th century. The founder, Siyyid ‘Al Muhammad, began teaching in the midst of messianic expectations in Islam. He called himself the Bab (Arabic for “gate”) and declared that one would come after him who would bring peace and justice to the world. His successor, Mirza Hussein Ali (also known as Baha’u’llah, or “glory of God” in Arabic), carried on the Bab’s teachings. He commissioned the construction of the Baha’i Gardens as a place of beauty and serenity. At the center of the gardens is a mausoleum where the Bab is buried.

There’s a lot to commend in the Baha’i faith. It teaches equality between men and women, harmony between science and faith, and the importance of monogamy. It values aesthetic beauty and encourages education. The Baha’i teach that sin is disobedience to the commands of God. However, they believe that the way to freedom from sin is simply through choosing to do good. That is, it assumes we have the capacity to choose good. It assumes we have the ability to save ourselves.

The Bible is clear, though. We are utterly incapable of living obediently to God. There is nothing good in us. We’re prone to wander. We’re wayward sons and daughters in need of a forgiving Father. We’re prisoners in need of a deliverer. We’re slaves in need of redemption.

That’s why we’re here, in the land. Because God has provided for all of our needs through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Baha’i Gardens are beautiful. I can admire and appreciate their artistry. But what I need is the garden of Gethsemane and the garden of the resurrection. And so do you.

We then made our way to the other side of the harbor to a city called Acco. Acco is mentioned only once in the Bible – in the book of Judges. But our time there was focused on the era of the Crusades.

In 1096 militant Muslims laid siege to Constantinople. In desperation, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church called upon the Roman Catholic Church to send aid. The Greek and Roman churches were often at odds, but here they came together and pushed back against their attackers.

Then, just three years later, the Crusaders who had helped defeat the Muslims in Constantinople set their sights on reclaiming the Holy Land from Islamic control. They landed here, at the port of Acco, and set up a base at which they could receive and send out soldiers. The complex was buried by the Ottomans and only rediscovered in the mid-1900s.

The Crusades were far more complex than they’re often made out to be. They began as a resistance against militant Islam, but political and economic factors soon weighed in. They spanned nearly five hundred years and claimed countless lives. They caused untold devastation and destruction.

As I stood in those cavernous halls I quietly prayed for wisdom. We live in a complex world, too. We will often fail. We will over-react and under-react. We will act rashly at times and hesitate too long at others. So, I prayed for the wisdom to navigate the complexity of this world with truth and love, and that God would expand His kingdom through His people in His way. There’s undoubtedly more we could learn from the Crusades, but I don’t think there is less.

We ended our day at the northernmost border of Israel. We could see the buoys dividing Israeli from Lebanese waters in the Mediterranean Sea. The waters have cut out a grotto in the rocky hillside. We walked through paths that have been carved around the caverns and watched as the bright blue water came crashing in through the openings. We had no agenda other than to enjoy God’s magnificent creation.

We’ve been going hard the last week. We’ve visited a dozen or so sites, logged thousands of steps, filled page after page of notes, and we’ve enjoyed every minute of it. We have three days left and a lot more to see and learn. But it was nice to pause for a moment and just be in a beautiful place.

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy. (Psalm 96:11-12, ESV)

We began our day in a garden cultivated by people who follow a faith that puts its hope in the goodness of man. We ended our day in a grotto intricately carved by the only One who is good. Our hope is in Him and in Him alone.

We step back into the biblical story tomorrow as we head towards the region where Jesus spent the majority of this public ministry – the Sea of Galilee.