Caesarea

Our first stop was Caesarea. This was a town and a harbor King Herod  the Great built.. He was King of Israel when the wise men came and announced the birth of a King in Bethlehem. He responded by killing all the new children in Bethlehem. 

Next we boarded the bus for the Sea of Galilee, a 90 minute bus ride which gave our teacher Monte Luker time to share with us much about Israel.

Our first stop on the Sea of Galilee was a place were some think Jesus might have preached the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 and 7. We had a communion service. In the service we read the Beatitudes, Matthew 5 and Dr Luker gave a sermon as we sat and looked out over the Sea of Galilee where so much of Jesus' ministry took place.

After communion we boarded this boat for a trip on the Sea of Galilee. It was getting dark and there was a storm approaching. That brought to mind several stories in the bible of storms at night on the Sea of Galilee. We read one of those stories while on the boat. It was by them dark, windy and stormy. Talk about experiencing scripture!

Our captain said that we needed to get off the Lake before night because at night the Sea of Galilee would be full of small fishing boat laying out their nets to catch fish. In Luke 5 some of the disciples had been fishing all night and caught nothing. Jesus tells them to put their net on the other side of the boat and the net is full. They still fish all night on the Sea of Galilee.

We then docked, boarded the bus and went to our hotel in Tiberius, a town on the Sea of Galilee. The Sea Galilee, (a large lake really) is also known as the Lake of Tiberius. We had dinner and all of went to bed early for our first real sleep in 3 days.

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