Dashing through the New Testament

Well not the entire New Testament, but certainly the gospels. We began today on the Mount of the Beatitudes at the Church of the Beatitudes a Franciscan church at the site of the Sermon on the Mount. The geography of the place revealed how it would have been possible to preach and teach to such a large group of people, because it was a natural bowl leading down to the Sea of Galilee. From there we went to the Sea of Galilee for a boat ride. While on the boat Bishop Hutchinson lead us my favorite Gospel narrative, the story from Mark of the storm on the waters. The story took on an entirely new meaning because as we were on the water it grew more and more calm, when we knew that the weather had churned up the waters yesterday, and actually again later in the day. So we could clearly envision a storm boiling up quickly and dissipating with equal swiftness. Of course, the view from a boat is always the best, and it was true as we sat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee (actually a lake) and watched the town of Tiberius where we are staying.
From there we walked over to an archeological site where a first century fishing boat had been recovered from the Sea of Galilee during a drought year. The film that we watched detailed the recovery efforts that went into reclaiming this boat from the Sea. The we jumped onto the bus for a brief stop at two Gospel sites, the Church of the loaves and fishes and the Church of Peter’s primacy. At the first stop the church was the location where Jesus is said to have blessed the five loaves and two fish for the feeding of the multitudes. This is the site of an ongoing construction of a Benedictine monastery. This is also the site of first century mosaics that appear on modern day liturgical garments and pottery. The second stop was a smaller church on the sea where Jesus is said to have appeared to the disciples following his resurrection. This is the place where after the bad night of fishing the disciples, following the directions of Jesus, fished on the other side, and pulled in the 153 fish. Here Peter was questioned three times of his love for Jesus.
Although noon time passed our morning was not complete. Our next location as Capernaum and we viewed an archeological site complete with a first century house church, a ruin and a fourth century synagogue built on a first century synagogue. But the most intriguing part of the visit was a chorus of “In the Sweet bye and bye” and the Battle hymn of the republic, sung by a group of Romanian Pentecost’s that were visiting at the same time.
The veil was pulled far back, this was a thin place.