Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land

by Ruth Everhart

  “Maybe they had bigger butts back then,” JoAnne suggests.

  “You stand on the stones,” says the guide. “They’re for squatting, not sitting.”

  While the guys mimic squatting, to everyone’s merriment, the guide points out two grooves near the bottom of the stone wall. “These are troughs. Fresh water would be continuously pumped during events, one trough for constant flushing and one for hand-washing.”

  “Four people at a time — pretty neat! Better than some concerts I’ve been to,” says Ashley.

  “But what about being smack-dab next to each other like that?” one of the older women asks.

  “I wouldn’t mind sharing,” says JoAnne. “After all, everybody poops.”

  “That’s your whole theology, isn’t it!” exclaims Charlie.

  “Well, it’s true,” says JoAnne.

  We get back in the bus to ride another two hours or so, east toward the Sea of Galilee. We arrive at our lodgings just before suppertime. Pilgerhaus is a large facility sprawled along the western shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. There are multiple buildings and beautiful landscaping.

  I’ve heard Bible place names all my life: Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee. One of the gifts of this pilgrimage is the very different mental pictures I will attach to each of those names from now on. Today I realize that the Galilee region, where Jesus grew up, is much more verdant than Jerusalem. There’s color everywhere: green and yellow grass, pink and purple flowers, trees dripping red blossoms. Not only is there more color, but the light isn’t as harsh. Perhaps in Jerusalem all the rock and sand reflect the desert sun.

  Our rooms are surprisingly modern, with ceramic tile and modular beds. JoAnne and I exclaim over our new digs and take luxurious showers. When we walk into the dining room, we’re greeted by a man in his thirties who clasps both of JoAnne’s hands, then both of mine.

  “My name is Victor, and what a lucky man I am! I am a Palestinian, and I have a job! What’s more, I have a job serving food to beautiful women such as yourselves!”

  I decide to let myself be susceptible to his charms. Isn’t that part of the allure of travel?

  We sit down to a well-appointed table. There are the local foods we have come to expect — pita bread and salads and lamb and eggplant — but more besides. I eat my fill of broiled fish and fresh green beans swimming in butter. We buy wine from Victor, then clink our glasses to this new chapter of our pilgrimage. The wine is called Cremisan, and it’s made by Palestinians on their ancient lands. We solemnly toast our solidarity with them — and each other.

  After dinner we decide to change into our suits and go for a swim. It’s mainly the documentary group plus a few others, including Krisha, the young woman who’s hoping to see Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We pick our way, barefoot, to the rocky lakeshore and understand why we were told to bring flashlights. They aren’t necessary tonight, though, because the moon is full and bright.

  Brian and Camera Michael, our full-service filmmakers, had stopped earlier to buy inflatable inner tubes. The first pilgrims in the water call encouragingly to the rest of us. Their happy voices carry across the water. The rocks on the shoreline are the size of chicken eggs and make for slow going. I’m a bit afraid I’ll turn an ankle. And I know I’ll need my pilgrim feet tomorrow.

  The water is soft and warm. Just yesterday the salt water of the Dead Sea stung the blisters of my feet, but this is an entirely different experience. This water is soothing, with a texture like silk. It must be chock-full of minerals. I have the sensation that I’m slipping into a second skin, an undergarment. The skin of my feet is already plumping in this water. My calves and thighs drink it in. I walk deeper, to my waist and beyond. I’m buoyant as I breast-stroke. I’ve never felt more graceful in water. I feel elevated by the very touch of it.

  I’m not the only one whose spirits are rising. The day of too much bus exhaust is becoming a dim memory. Our group gets sillier as the moments pass. We start splashing. I can tell that dunking is only moments away. I put my whole head in the water so I won’t have to fear it. Besides, I want to coat my hair with this wonderful elixir.

  “Jesus swam in this very lake,” Ashley says.

  “In this very same water,” someone echoes.

  “It would be different water,” someone else says, correctively, and a science debate ensues. The water would have evaporated and rained down a million times between then and now. Yes, but a lot of that water would have stayed in this same region. And what about the minerals? I listen with one ear, enjoying the silliness. I decide to believe that this is the very same water that Jesus stepped in, that some critical mass of the substance of the water is the same. Sometimes theology is like that: you listen, you think, and in the end you choose what you want to believe.

  I dive and swim underwater, the water encasing me like a glove. The possibility that this very same water encased the body of Jesus is almost too much glory to bear. I feel emotions similar to those I felt at the Stone of Anointing, only now the divine presence is tinged with joy rather than sorrow. Jesus’ body lay on that slab in death, but this water encased his body in life, in the throes of life, while he helped with the fishing nets or cooled off from a dusty day of walking.

  Someone brings the leftover dinner wine down to the lake. We don’t have glasses, so we pass the bottles from hand to hand. We’ve all tasted better wine than this Cremisan, but nothing can be more delicious than this night. Nothing can be better than this Palestinian wine, as we drink it under a Palestinian moon, honoring Jesus.

  We lean back, floating and enjoying the Sea of Galilee. The moon is a round disc, shining through the clouds and painting a shimmering path on the water. I imagine that it beckoned the ancient people as it beckons me. What did that path of light say to Jesus when he went night fishing with his disciples? Did it speak to him of peace? Above us on a high plateau, the lights of the Golan Heights wink and flicker. I understood, before, that the Golan Heights has been a political football between Syria and Israel, but seeing how high this land towers, and also its proximity to water, I can understand better why the nations fight.

  At the very moment that I’m glimpsing Jesus as the Prince of Peace, I’m also glimpsing the strategic importance of the Golan Heights. So it goes in this Holy Land.

  JoAnne and I grasp the same bottle of wine so that we can lie back and float and keep the bottle of wine upright between us. Ashley hooks on to the bottle, and then Kyle. We make a four-armed starfish. It occurs to me that I must be drunk to feel like this, but I’m not. More pilgrims float by, another starfish.

  “Everybody!” someone yells. “Let’s all float altogether.”

  We link up by fingers and toes, by ankles and shins and wrists.

  “Now!” We make a flotilla, a giant starfish, a star. We become one organism. We last only a moment before the first person starts to sink, and the whole flotilla goes down. We try again, lasting a bit longer. We try counting before we begin. It helps to start at the exact same moment. The biggest problem is the laughing. We simply can’t stop. Our joy is buoyant and inescapable.

  Each time there’s a countdown, I lean back to float. With my eyes open and my ears submerged, the laughing of my friends recedes. It’s like entering a great solitude, even while in the company of a great many saints. When I’m submerged, everything is blotted out except this body of water and this night sky. I’ve never seen stars this bright from my home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Even on the rooftop in Jerusalem, the stars weren’t this crisp.

  I close my eyes and listen underwater but hear only the very distant sound of laughter. I think about the water that’s stopping my ears, the same water that Peter and Andrew and James and John caught fish in, and I’m so overcome that I can hardly breathe. I immediately begin to sink and must stand up with a great splash.

  All around is hilarity. We’re brushing against something ineffable, some presence that lingers in this water and this moon, some presence that make
s us so happy that we must do something. Charlie is in one of the inner tubes. He fills an empty wine bottle with the water of Galilee and pours it over his head. He yells, “Y’all need to get freed up!” He refills the bottle and empties it again. “Get freed up!” He is baptizing himself with this delicious Galilean water. I hope it gives him exactly what he needs. Every pilgrim needs a supply of living water.

  At breakfast I fill my plate at the buffet. Victor visits my table. “How was your swim last night?”

  “You know we went swimming?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Who could sleep with the shouting and laughing all night?”

  I feel chagrined. I’d forgotten how sound carries across water. “I’m so sorry if we bothered you,” I say.

  Victor laughs again, heartily. “Bother? Bother is rocket missiles. Bother is not laughter! Go ahead — be crazy! It’s the only way to be in this crazy war. Today we are lucky to be alive!”

  Tabgha

  CHAPTER 15

  Multiply

  How many loaves have you? Go and see.

  MARK 6:38

  TABGHA IS THE place where Jesus miraculously fed a crowd of five thousand people with only five small loaves of bread and two fish, which generated twelve baskets of leftovers. Maybe it’s because JoAnne and I have been sharing a dorm room named Tabgha, but I’ve been dreaming about those loaves. The story is familiar. It’s told in all four Gospels — plus, as if for good measure, Matthew and Mark include a second version where Jesus feeds four thousand people. This miraculous feeding is obviously a pivotal story.

  Some preachers turn this text into a type of Sesame Street parable about sharing. When the boy shared his lunch, so did everyone else, and then there was enough — so we should share. Well, yes, we should share, but is that the point? Was the lunch that day simply the miracle of potluck?

  Other preachers go the symbolic route. This shared meal was a feast in the manner of Holy Communion, a high and holy ritual rather than actual nourishment. Each person pinched off a tiny crumb of bread and proclaimed it satisfying. Well, yes, communion is satisfying, but is that the point? What about those five thousand hungry people?

  I understand why people pick a particular interpretation. It’s a way of making the text manageable. We like to understand things, and the easiest way to understand Scripture is to reduce it to one simple point. More important, perhaps, is figuring out the central question and whether or not we can answer it satisfactorily. Is this Tabgha story about the human need to consume something? Does it ask us what we hunger for? Or does it ask us to ponder abundance?

  Even children understand these questions. I remember a time I taught this lesson in Sunday school. I drew stick figures on paper, photocopied them to equal a crowd of five thousand, then taped the figures all around the room so the children could imagine being in a crowd that size, and hungry. What would it take to feed us all? The children’s eyes grew large as they looked around, and one child said, “Jesus always has enough.”

  The bus pulls up. It’s perfect. There’s an expanse of rocks and grass leading down to the Sea of Galilee. You can immediately picture how a crowd could gather and see without obstruction. The water would provide a sort of natural megaphone from behind Jesus. After last night’s experience, with the sound of our joy traveling across the water, I’m unlikely to forget that detail.

  There’s a sizable courtyard and gift shop, but the shrine itself is a simple stone church. I like it immediately because of its clean lines. Intersecting stone archways create a domed roof. There are only a few pews, exceedingly plain — what Ikea would make if Ikea made pews. The eye is drawn to a stunning piece of black ironwork that hangs over the stone altar. The altar was constructed over the rock where Jesus placed the loaves and fishes when he blessed them. In front of the altar is a mosaic depicting a fish on either side of a bowl holding bread rolls. Tradition says that Jesus stood exactly where this mosaic was laid.

  Under the altar is the sacred rock itself, which you may kneel down and touch. It would be easy to scoff at the authenticity of this rock, to wonder if it is the actual rock where Jesus laid the bread and fish. Who would remember exactly which rock Jesus used in a field of rocks? How would that knowledge have been passed from generation to generation — at least with any kind of verifiability? Nobody used surveying equipment to mark the spot, did they? And even if it’s the actual rock, wasn’t it just a random rock, handily flat and conveniently located? Was there anything sacred about that rock?

  I kneel to examine this “rock of multiplication.” It’s broad and bumpy, and blackened from the touch of so many human hands. So many humans needing so many things multiplied. A simple oil lamp is perched in one crevice. Tightly rolled papers are tucked in other crevices. Bits of paper are scattered about, like the fortunes from broken cookies. I look at all these slips of paper, all these human needs, and wonder about the people who left them on this rock. What needed to be multiplied in their lives?

  And what about me — what do I need multiplied? I cannot decide because I have plenty of everything. I have people to love and work to do. To ask for more while on a trip like this would seem downright greedy. I decide to write a simple prayer — for abundance. After all, I’m in the place where God showed great abundance. A boy gave Jesus his lunch, and abundance flowed to the crowd. I study the mosaic — those two fish and five loaves — and realize what a nice lunch the boy gave up.

  It strikes me that, before there could be abundance, the boy had to give up what he already had. Why have I never realized this?

  But I haven’t. I haven’t asked myself what I might need to give up in order for it to be multiplied. What do I have in adequate amount for myself that I desire to have in greater abundance to share with others? As I crouch beside the rock, the answer is obvious: words, written words. I live out my call to ministry through writing: sermons, fiction, nonfiction. How would my life change if I gave my words to Jesus and he blessed them? I fear that the world will laugh at my words, at their inadequacy, so I fret over them. I have trouble releasing them to the world. Squatting there, I realize that I have never given my written words, without reservation, to Jesus. I want to do that. I want to write down my intention and leave it as a sort of promissory note to Jesus: I give you my words.

  As I’m scribbling this onto a page, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker: The tour bus is loading. I tear the prayer from my journal, roll it tightly, and leave it on the rock.

  Running across the courtyard, I notice that JoAnne is in the gift shop, pawing madly through a rack of T-shirts. The shirts have a picture of the Tabgha mosaic across the chest, and I understand instantly why she wants one. I want one, too. I want a reminder of miraculous multiplication. We each grab a shirt and hurry to the cash register.

  “What are we trying to buy, anyway?” I ask her, panting a bit.

  “A souvenir,” she says. “Of abundance.”

  Yes. As a remembrance of God’s willingness to give us abundance without limit or price tag, we each plunk down a credit card to buy a Hanes Beefy-T.

  Pilgrims with plastic.

  Reine

  CHAPTER 16

  Cheek to Cheek

  Ephphatha! Be opened!

  MARK 7:34

  “WHEN THESE PEOPLE read about the miracle at Cana, they’re reading about their neighbors,” JoAnne says to everyone on the bus. “Imagine that.”

  We’re headed to Reine, the town just down the road from Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle. He turned water into wine at a wedding reception because his mother asked him to.

  “Do you think they do a lot of weddings?” asks Michael.

  “Maybe wedding receptions,” says Charlie. “Fun ones, with lots of wine — not like ours!”

  We will worship at the Church of the Holy Family in Reine on this Sunday morning. Other than the fact that this church is just down the road from Cana in Galilee — and that it’s been there for some two thousand years — worshiping at Reine feels
surprisingly similar to worshiping in my Presbyterian church in suburban D.C. One similarity is that the congregations are about the same size. In a word: small. When the forty of us pilgrims enter the sanctuary at Holy Family, we roughly double the number of worshipers. Another similarity is the size of the church building. Holy Family is a few hundred years old, built of rough-cut stone. My church is 140 years old, built of brick. Even the two organs sound the same. This organ, like the one back home, has a tendency to sound a bit like a roller-rink Wurlitzer, especially if the organist gets carried away and begins to rollick. Here’s a difference in the churches: this church has a stained-glass window showing the Holy Family. Hardly surprising, except that Mary and Joseph and the boy Jesus all have blond hair and blue eyes.

  The priest, Father Samuel Barhoum, preaches on the healing of the deaf man who is also mute. The brief text is from Mark 7, a straightforward miracle of Jesus. Father Barhoum preaches first in Arabic, then in English. I love hearing the command in Aramaic: Ephphatha! (EP-fa-tha). The phrase is a tongue twister, which is a bit ironic, given its meaning: Be opened! Open your ears! Your eyes! Your mouth!

  Father Barhoum asks, “How long has it been since you talked with another person with a truly open heart, not judging anything about them? How long since you listened to the Spirit of God rather than culture or your own desires? How long since you opened yourself to God’s will, rather than obsessing over your own?”

  I feel convicted by the simplicity and power of the message. It’s no easy thing to be open. That’s why pilgrimage is so challenging. It’s easier to protect my belief system than to open it for scrutiny. But how can it be useful if it’s closed? Even a treasure chest needs to be open. I try to absorb this sermon as God’s word to me today.

  But the preacher isn’t done. He turns to us pilgrims and asks us, point-blank, to be ambassadors for the Christians of the Holy Land. “We need your solidarity,” he says. “We need your support. We need you to open your eyes and see our situation. We need you to open your ears to hear our pain. We need you to open your tongue to tell others. For we are the living stones, and we will not die. But these are hard times, and we need your help.”