We were instructed the night before to have our suitcases in the hallway of our hotel by 6:30 am. It feels strange to let other people cart your suitcases around for you, I've never had that luxury before. It does make you a bit nervous to leave a bag in a hallway in a foreign country but we were not the only ones so it worked out, our bags made it to our bus.
Our tour was well organized in this matter. We were given red luggage tags which we fastened to our suitcases which corresponded to our "red" bus. All of the gratuities and meals (except lunches) were prepaid so we didn't have to feel awkward or "hawked" about tipping everybody every time you turned around. It is a great way to go. You just worry about what you want for lunch which is not too hard since 50% of your choices will be falafal and any trinkets that you feel you can't live without.
Speaking of trinkets. Wow, they are expensive in Israel. I was thinking a nice ram's horn would be a nice memento of our trip. Even an unadorned, very small, ugly one was over $150 US. It definitely went up from there. Longer, more polished versions quickly got in the $300 US range and I saw some with silver inlays and carving that I didn't even bother to price. The olive wood carvings are beautiful but again I was a little aghast at their prices. Some places offered us a "discount" (just for you!) that made the price only in the overpriced category. Honestly, a little olive wood manger scene that was nicely done, $500 US. None of those came home with me.
Anyway, we ate our final breakfast at our nice hotel and boarded our buses. Our destination is the traditional site of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist. Our tour leader, Dr. Marc Turnage tells us that this is very unlikely the actual place of Jesus' baptism for a few reasons. 1. Jesus and John both lived in the northern region of Galilee, it is unlikely that they would travel south of Galilee just for a baptism and then return where Jesus' 40 wilderness experience took place. 2. Being Jewish, the waters north of Galilee are "living" waters (remember Dan and Ceasarea Philippi?) and the Jordan river south of Galilee is slower, sluggish and polluted. An observant Jew would not baptize himself in that kind of water. 3. It was just quicker and easier to tell pilgrims that Jesus was baptized closer to the main pilgrimage sites and not lose their chance for financial gain. There were more reasons that Dr. Turnage cited and by the time he was done I was a little deflated.
One of the things I was planning to do was be re-baptized in the Jordan river when I went to Israel. After hearing this was basically an elaborate tourist trap, albeit a centuries old one, it kind of lost it's appeal. The "polluted" part didn't help me either. So, I thought I will just observe.
We pull into a very large facility, I am amazed at how large this baptismal site is.
There are many murals that have many languages that quote the biblical passages concerning Jesus' baptism. There are apparently many faith traditons that pilgrimage to this site and they cater to them all. There are little trees that have been planted in the garden areas with name plaques of the famous people who donated to this place, Glenn Beck and John Hagee were two recent and notable ones. I think Madonna was also a plaque in there too.
There are several baptismal stations with stone seating around each one. This place is prepared for production.
Simultaneous to our baptism celebration were two others, one that I am assuming was Korean and one with mostly black people, maybe Nigerian. I am told that the Nigerian government will pay for their citizens to make a pilgrimage to either Mecca or Israel once in their lifetime. Pretty neat. There are LOTS of Nigerians in Israel on pilgrimage.
While those getting baptized are changing into their provided baptismal robes, I wander the facility. There are all sizes of Jordan River water for sale for you to take home with you. There are pictures and crosses and all kinds of kitchy things in the gift shop. I note that directly across the Jordan river from this baptismal area there is a animal pen containing donkeys, goats and some sheep. The aroma of the penned animals wafts across the 40 feet or so of river between us. I move up wind. There are some sizable fish that come near the surface of the water before descending to the murky depths.
Finally everyone is ready and we sing some hymns and Dr. George Wood gives a devotional. They have all of the District Superintendents (several) and other notable ministers enter the water first as dozens of baptizees wait their turn.
Baptisms take place for the next 30 minutes or so. It is fun and for many of the people very significant to be baptized here.
After everyone has been baptized, we wait for them to shower and change into their clothes. The gift shop is extensive and just about any sort of religious trinket can be bought there. We didn't feel the need for any, so we wandered on out to our buses that were waiting at the curb for us.
Our next stop is Nazareth.
From now on, our visit to Israel takes a dramatic turn in feel. No more beautiful Sea of Galilee, beautiful agriculture or lush pastures. It is rocky, steep country and busy. Nazareth is a city of 80-100,000 people and built mostly on a hillside so there was lots of stairs and uphill walking to get around.
It is also a largely Palestinian area which to me all seem to have a different "feel" to them. I don't know how to describe it except to say I feel more conspicuous in these areas than I ever did in areas that were mostly Jewish. I don't ever feel "relaxed". It might just be me as it didn't seem to bother anyone else.
We arrive in Nazareth before too long and discover it is a very busy place. Narrow streets lined by little shops with wares spilling out on to the too narrow sidewalks, zooming traffic, zippy scooters all going somewhere. We pull into a lot where the buses park and we disembark. We are told to stay with the group and to not get separated. We have a ways to walk (uphill) and we need to get going. Not being one who desires to get lost in a foreign country, I took hold of Indiana Jolie's hand and we stayed with the leaders pretty close. Getting a group of 160 tourists up a narrow, crowded, busy Nazareth street in the morning is quite a feat. So many want to stop and take pictures along the way.
Our guides are all spread out keeping us together and barking commands to keep us moving and not get split up. Walking uphill against little groups of people gathered on the sidewalk eating falafel, passing old men in suits holding canes and navigating the shops which display their wares on the walkway takes some care to not bump into anyone or dump anything over and still keep up.
Our destination is the Church of the Annunciation (or where the Angel announced to Mary that she was "with child"). There is an interesting problem in these ancient cities. There are invaluable archaeology sites in the middle of these cities and space to build buildings is very limited. So, they tend to build their (sometimes) quite large buildings over the archaeology site. So sometimes a site is literally in the basement of the building or sometimes it is built like an open basement with supporting pillars placed here and there to hold up the building while you look and see the site underneath the building itself. Such is Nazareth.
The Church of the Annunciation is a large complex surrounded by a wall with large courtyards, many stairs and statues. It appears to be Catholic. It is the large building with the black cone roof just left of center in the picture.
When we are all assembled, Dr. Turnage lectures on some of the misconceptions of Jesus' family. We are all familiar with the idea that Jesus' father, Joseph was a carpenter and by trade so was Jesus. I am not sure how, but the term "carpenter" should actually be "stone mason". This makes a lot of sense as in this part of Israel, there is no wood to speak of. The wood you might find like olive wood is not suitable for carpentry. A carpenter as we think of them would essentially be unemployed in a place like Nazareth. A stone mason? Work is everywhere. In fact, a stone mason was also by necessity an architect and legal consultant. It was likely that one of the reasons Joseph is so little mentioned in scripture is that he had been conscripted by the Romans to use his talents in the construction of Tiberias which was under construction in Jesus' time and was gone much of the time.
We ascend a lot of stairs to an area that is under part of the building of the church. There are walkways in and through the archaeological site so we can see quite a bit. We are told that Nazareth was not a large village, quite small actually, about the size of a football field that had 200-300 people who lived there. The rest of the site would be under the courtyard right outside where we are, under the street beyond the wall and a little ways under the buildings on the other side of the street.
It is fascinating as usual. This excavation actually does date to Jesus' time. With Nazareth so small, what are the chances this small excavation actually exposes Jesus' boyhood home? Interesting indeed. There are a satisfying number of rocks to photograph here so Indiana Jolie and I get busy. It is different studying an archaeological site with so much city noise and other groups competing for the same things we are interested in.
It is very warm and I consume all the warm water in my bag. I try to stay under the building where it is coolest. We are really enjoying reading all the little interpretive signs and diagrams when they tell us it is time to make our way back to the buses which means retracing our steps down the many stairs and down the narrow, busy streets of Nazareth.
We navigate the route successfully but it is near lunch time and even the little balls of falafel deep frying along the sidewalks smells tempting. Apparently we have one more stop before lunch. We board the buses and and grind our way through the narrow slits in the city they call streets. These bus drivers earn their money in places like this.
We don't go far and we hear the diesel engines strain as we head up a steep grade. It is very park-like here and reminds me of some of the state parks I remember when we lived in California years ago. We continue up the switchbacks and eventually end up in a parking lot. There is a short trail to the top of the mountain which gives us an excellent view of the entire area. This mountain top ends with an abrupt almost cliff like side. It is speculated that this might have been the location that the home town folks tried to throw Jesus over the cliff when they were offended by him as he spoke with such great wisdom. Many Palestinian families seem to come here for picnics and fun. It is fairly crowded and busy here too.
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