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Today started at 5:30 a.m., as we scrambled to get our bags packed, eat breakfast and portage said bags out of the Jaffa Gate and down to the bus to leave before 7. Uncharacteristically for me, it’s about 11:00 p.m. local as I write this. Something about the combination of this place and the fellowship of those journeying with me has given me more energy than I typically have.

Our day started with a whirlwind trip through Ceasarea Maritima and its aqueduct, then to Muhraqa Carmelite Monastery (for its position on Mt. Carmel near where Elijah confronted the priests of Baal), to Tel Megiddo, to Nazareth (particularly Mt. Precipice, where the photo above was taken. Er–the photo that would be above if the internet would allow me to upload it) to our hotel on the eastern (formerly Gentile) side of the Sea of Galilee.

In case it wasn’t apparent, the day was packed, with over six miles walked and at least five hours in the bus.

I have much to say about the day’s experiences, but I’ll focus on one idea in particular and leave the rest to germinate further.

Consider on the one hand Caesarea Maritima, a piece of Rome in the Middle East created at the command of Herod the Great, lover of all things Roman as well as power and luxury. And perhaps genius builder. Herod wanted to have a palace (complete with swimming pool) that appeared to float on the sea. He also wanted to create an artificial harbor (reportedly larger than the Athens harbor) on the dangerously shallow coast line where Strato’s Tower had stood.

This required an unprecedented use of hydraulic cement–that is, cement that will set even underwater. The Romans had invented the stuff and used it to build bases for piers and other small-scale projects, but Herod used it both to lay the foundation of his palace and breakwaters for the harbor. The site had no potable water, so Herod built a Roman-style aqueduct to bring water in from thirteen miles away.

Not to be without the finer elements of Roman culture, Ceasarea Maritima boasts a large ampitheatre and a chariot stadium that could have fit 20,000 people. Unwilling to have the same beige limestone look as Jerusalem, marble and granite were imported by sea to create columns, statutes and sheathing for those facades that were not plastered and covered with frescos. Intricate mosaic tilework covered the floors of many buildings and homes, which had indoor heating through the innovative Roman technology for underfloor steamworks and used the tides to sweep latrine waste out to sea twice a day. The remnants of clay pipes providing running water remain evident.

The city must have passed the test, because Pontius Pilate lived in Herod’s Palace there as much as he could (when business did not call him to Jerusalem), as did later provincial overlords. Caesarea Maritima boasted trade (at least for the import of luxury items), the latest in first century CE technologies, and art and architecture worthy of the Empire.

On the other hand, consider Nazareth. If, as I was before today, you’re not familiar with the geography, here’s what you need to know: Though an urban sprawl today, Nazareth was a tiny village in the first century, perhaps a dozen homes and just enough land cleared for subsistence farming. Those homes–they were mostly caves, perhaps expanded for a little extra comfort, but caves nonetheless. These dozen or so cave-homes occupied an elevated bowl shape surrounded on all sides by rugged mountain terrain. Until the Israelis literally (I assure you that the word is being used correctly) cut through the mountainside to build a road, there was no easy way to get to Nazareth. Pick the spot you think will be easiest to climb, and set aside several hours to do it.

This is probably exactly how the people of Nazareth liked it. Given their proximity to the ultra-fertile Jezreel Valley below and the numerous nearby settlements (Nain and Shunem, to name two) where they could have lived, this village’s isolation must have been highly intentional. A handful of Jewish families willing to scratch out an independent living to practice the faith of their forefathers and to avoid contamination by the Greco-Roman culture seducing their many peers. The kind of place our dear President would likely call a “shithole.”

When Jesus uses Rome as an example of the often-corrupting influences of wealth, status and power, he can point to Caesarea Maritima (named for Augustus Caesar) on the coast as a very concrete example of his meaning. At the same time, the King of Kings himself hailed from the unlikeliest and humblest of origins–a dirt-poor and poorly-regarded settlement of religiously-fanatic survivalists. The juxtaposition of these two real, geographically significant places brings sharply into focus the tension between those seductive but ultimately unfulfilling vanities with the extent to which God proved willing to condescend to be present with us in the world. Two very different ideologies (and here I mean God’s in choosing to use Nazareth, not the Nazarene peoples’s own ideas) placed in such close proximity in the same land.

Let it sink in.

Tomorrow, we’ll spend much of the day in the Golan Heights, visiting a first-century synagogue where Jesus almost undoubtedly preached, the village of Dan in the far north of the country near the borders with Lebanon and Syria (if the weather is clear enough, it might be possible to see Damascus from there) and Caesarea Philippi. It’s hard to think that on this pilgrimage we’ll be so close to the continuing devastation and heartache of the Syrian civil war.

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