Dear one,
Thank you. Before I share further with you, please know that I am so very grateful for your continued interest, prayer, and/or finances on my behalf. You have greatly encouraged my traveling to Romania, Uganda, and Malawi—with Israel a gift through the kindness of Zionsville Presbyterian Church and its people.
Regarding Israel, I would now share with you three, first sightings and impressions: first, the Temple Mount, but most clearly its eastern border, the Kidron Valley; second, the Sea of Galilee, as seen by night from the Golan Heights, with Mount Herman to the north; and third, En Gedi, that rugged, desert cleavage with its fresh water spring flowing to the Dead Sea.
For years I have reflected with others: Jesus and His disciples crossed the Kidron Valley to Gethsemane, knowing that nearby hundreds of Passover lambs had just been sacrificed—and now that valley lay before me! Likewise, for years I have taught: Jesus healed many from the Galilean villages of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida—and now by night I beheld their lights. And often I have pondered Jesus’ wilderness temptations—and now I glimpsed that desolate terrain He knew well. That is, I sensed what most any visitor to present-day Israel might experience: this is the land in which Jesus walked, talked, laughed, listened, slept, and suffered.
As I knew they must, these sightings confronted me with Jesus’ humanity: admittedly, living two millennia after His life, death, and resurrection, it’s easy for me to romanticize and thereby dehumanize His nature—but to see where He lived underscored for me that declaration of John’s Gospel:
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
As you might well know, the verb translated “to live” among us can equally mean: “to dwell,” “to tabernacle,” or even “to camp”—and surely Jesus did that. He “camped” among those of first century Jerusalem, Capernaum, and En Gedi, but wonder of wonders, as John recorded, this One was God incarnate. To be sure, some of his contemporaries, as Nathaniel at first did, asked: “Can anything good [or noble] come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Humanly Nathaniel knew of what he spoke: Nazareth was a first century Podunk. However, with others he soon realized that great good could and did come from Nazareth—a Good yet to be fully comprehend; a Good Thomas later declared as: “My Lord and my God!”
Sincerely,
Stan
Ps. My focus now shifts to Uganda, June 5-21.