Day 05 - Katzrin, Caesarea Philippi, Tel Dan, Susita

Every stop we make serves to enhance our understanding of Israel’s story. Every tel, every archeological dig, every teaching Ronen gives– they are all stones carefully laid as we build a more solid foundation for our faith.

The ruins we walk among help us to visualize the biblical world. As my daughter exclaimed with her hand on a basalt wall, “I’m touching HISTORY!” But sometimes the rocks and ruins all begin to run together. What we need at that point is a living museum!  

This morning we donned only the most historically accurate of Hebrew costume and walked with an Israeli mother and her young daughter through the ancient village of Katzrin. She taught us how to grind olives with a milling-stone and take the fresh pulp to press into oil. She taught us how Israelite women would grind wheat berries into flour, make dough and bake bread for her family each day. Hours of labor consumed in seconds! I enjoyed my hot bread with hyssop and olive oil while saying a silent thanks for all the Hebrew mothers who’s kids didn’t know how good they had it.  

Entering a reconstructed house, my family climbed the ladder into an upper room to listen to Ronen teach from Luke 5:17-26. As we heard the familiar story it seemed like we were there. With the light of an oil lamp flickering on the wall, our group of 30 were an echo of the people crowded into a dark stone house to hear Jesus that day. We may have felt cramped, but so many people were there for Jesus’ teaching that the determined friends of the paralyzed man had to enter the house through the roof!

In a small way, in Katzrin we felt what it would be like to be close to Jesus. Later in the afternoon, at Tel Dan and Caesarea Phillipi, we felt what it would have been like to be disastrously far away from him.  We learned of the tribe of Dan. Though they were Israelites and members of God’s covenant community, they made one horrible mistake after another until finally they were seemingly expelled from God’s house. 

The people of Caesarea Philippi were gentiles. They had never known Israel’s God but instead worshiped the nature god – a God of panic and primal vices. A worshiper of the Lord wants to please God through aligning with his character and the same can be said for the worshippers at Caesarea Philippi. In order to please Pan, they involved themselves with all the debauched acts they attributed to Pan. It was a place of chaos and evil and as far away from righteousness as possible– and yet!–Jesus came here with his disciples in Matthew 16. 

Perhaps this is what he wished to communicate with his disciples: The Messiah is here for all and redeems all. The Messiah is here for the righteous and the unrighteous; The ignorant and the defiant.  

On the steps of Pan’s temple, I thought back to the insulae, or family compounds, we visited in Chorazin. In John 14, Jesus says that his Father’s house has many rooms. Because of Jesus’ reconciling work, there is room for the people of Caesarea Philippi and all gentiles who seek adoption into God’s family, and there is room for the Tribe of Dan and all those prodigal sons who wish to return to the house of their father.