One week to go before we set off for the Holy Land. Although Jerusalem beckoned me, I knew that one of the most loved areas will be at Lake Galilee.
As a Roman Catholic priest said, “Even if there are many places telling you that Jesus walked here and making claims for his presence in that place, there is one thing that you must do. That is to see the dawn appear over the Sea of Galilee, as it comes up between the dark hills and that first shaft of light hits the water, then you know that Jesus would have seen that same shaft of light so many years ago.”
The tranquillity of the edge of the lake is magical and a timelessness that pervades even the most restless of spirits. The lake feeds into the River Jordan at the south side and forms a backdrop of our journey with Jesus at his baptism.
Geographically, the Jordan Valley is part of a 380-kilometer-long rift valley runs from the Yarmouk River in the north to Al Aqaba in the south. The Dead Sea valley is a fraction of The Great Rift: a fault of some 37,000 miles that was created around 25 million years ago, as an outcome of an asymmetric shift between the Asian and the African shields.
And for now I would start getting my clothes and notebooks ready, and so look forward to getting a little lost in mind and spirit, at Lake Galilee.
Revd Sue Martin
