Day 02 - Masada, Bedouin Hospitality, Camel Ride, Tel Arad, Dead Sea

The wilderness is different from the way most of us have visualized since our Sunday school days. Imagine rolling hills, plateaus, and crags covered with more rocks than you’ve ever seen. Take that image you have in your head and add even more rocks– Now you’ll be at a pretty good approximation of the Judean Desert! Even our camels seemed to be about sick of all the rocks as they kicked and stomped them under their hooves!

As we explored the wilderness, the harsh inhospitable nature of the place was apparent, but a desolated environment doesn’t mean that God is absent from this region. Quite the opposite!

Time and again the wilderness is where humanity went to meet God– to connect with him and learn His will. This was the place the Patriarchs first covenanted with God; the place where Hagar was seen by God; where Moses received his call and then, many years later, the Law. This is the place where Christ himself prepared for ministry. This rocky wasteland bears great spiritual fruit, and isn’t it just God’s way to make the barren fruitful?!

As we played in the mud and buoyant waters of the Dead Sea we learned that the wilderness also offers physical healing. There are blessings in the wilderness when you know where to look!

The wilderness has always offered protection to those who needed it- to the Hebrew children in Exodus of course, but also to David as he fled Saul, to the Maccabees, and to the Zealots of Masada. The wilderness is a place of freedom from oppression. A place to pursue righteousness away from outside influence. The wilderness offers course correction when the lush comforts of city life lead to compromise. It has a way of refining people, and bringing them back towards God.

The Bedouin people offer another blessing in the wilderness as they continue the hospitality of Abraham (Genesis 18). They offer tea and shelter to travelers who may not survive the harsh environment without their generosity through their embracing of philoxenia (Greek for both “love of neighbor” and “eager hospitality”). This tradition is absent in our individualistic society, but our world is just like the Wilderness of Zin–harsh and isolating (fewer rocks though, thank goodness!). Imagine how far an offer of love, free from expectation, would go in making our lives more hospitable. Though wilderness refines, community is also vital to our thriving.

Ronan reinforced that lesson at Tel Arad. There, the isolation of the wilderness lead to compromise and eventual destruction. The people in this distant outpost strayed off course by gradual degrees without a larger community to call them back and offer correction. The temple of Tel Arad is a near perfect Jewish house of worship, but within the Holy of Holies, two steles can be found, one dedicated to Yahweh and the other to the goddess Asherah. Within these ancient stone walls we see the importance of community and the need for righteous people to stand their ground when they see compromise begin. Brave people, like Hezekiah and Josiah, who right the ship of God’s people and place their sight back on God alone.

Tomorrow we stay the course towards Jerusalem. Aliyah!