The modern environment through which we traveled today did not relate in any way to the Holy Land pictures in the Sunday school books. Square buildings of concrete blocks lined busy streets with shop fronts displaying glittered evening gowns, car parts, oranges and pomegranates or shoes.
We first headed for Nazareth, arriving via Cana at rush hour, which allowed us to observe daily life at some length as we inched through the traffic. It was interesting to see quite a few more signs in Arabic in this region, and to glimpse mosques and women in hijabs. Gila told us that this type of garb is a more recent development; very few women dressed this way in the earlier years of her career as a guide.
The Church of the Annunciation was our first stop. It is a two-layered building, constructed over the traditional site of Mary’s home. A grotto-like area in the church’s lowest point marks the place where Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she would conceive and bear a son. After climbing a spiral staircase of 51 steps, we found ourselves in a much larger, newer church above the old one, dedicated to Mary. Gila said it’s the three-M church – Mary, modern and multinational.
Contributions from countries around the world went toward its construction in the 1920s, and on the walls were large and varied depictions of Mary with the name of each donor country. Canada’s was brown and abstract. The one by Japan showed a black-haired Madonna whose gown glinted with real pearls. The US contribution was a Mary made of small plates of steel. France gave a portrait that appeared to be made of porcelain.
To get to our next site, we strolled through a narrow shopping street, or souk, with small shops selling plastic toys, scarves, glittering jewelry or hunks of meat hanging out on great hooks! All the merchants were Arabs, and it was very much like the souks of Syria and Lebanon that I had seen when I lived in the Middle East as a teenager.
The Synagogue Church was a small, plain building with an oil painting of Jesus reading from the scriptures to the townspeople, who drummed him out of town when he told them the prophesies were fulfilled in their hearing. Gila told us that the location was not authentic, but the church had been built in the form of early synagogues from Jesus’ time.
Back we went through the souk again, and on to the Wedding Church, dedicated to the first sign of Christ, when he converted water into wine at a wedding feast. Our tour leader, Peter, read the passage from the Bible, and we were able to file through the sanctuary where a group of couples, dressed in white, were renewing their wedding vows as they stood around the altar. At the gift shop near the church, we were invited to taste tiny cups of Cana Wedding Wine, the same type of wine used at weddings here since Jesus’ time. It was very sweet! Some of our group purchased small bottles of the wine to take home.
For lunch today, we had shawarma, a Middle Eastern pita with shavings of, in our case, turkey and lamb sliced from a vertical spit that rotates in front of a hot cooking element. Bowls of condiments allowed eaters to dress up their sandwiches at will. The proprietor grinned when I ordered our shawarmas in Arabic.
After lunch, our bus brought us part way up Mount Tabor. Tradition holds that this is the high place, set apart, referred to in the Bible, where Jesus took Peter, James and John to pray. A dazzling light transformed the face of Jesus and his clothing, and the disciples saw Moses and Elijah standing with him. Then they heard a voice saying “this is my son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”.
The Church of the Transfiguration is at the very top of the mountain, and can be seen from far off from all sides. The road up the mountain is so steep and full of switch-backs that buses can’t navigate it, so we had to go up in mini-van taxis in groups of eight. Arab drivers from Shibli, the town at the base of the mountain, have a monopoly on this service, and they seem to enjoy tearing up the road at great speed, making blind turns with great abandon. As we stood in the upper parking lot waiting for the others to arrive, one of the drivers skidded into place with the door swinging open before he had even come to a stop!
The view from the mountain was vast on all sides, and lucky for us, it was clear and sunny so we could see all around. There were little villages, fields in the Jezreel valley planted with date palms or other crops, the rolling hills of Golan to the east and the city of Nazareth just north of the mountain. Big puffy clouds completed the scene.
Inside the church were beautiful mosaic panels on the ceilings with angels dressed in blue against a golden background, and behind the altar, a stained glass window with two huge peacocks facing each other and a chalice at the centre. On either side of the church entrance were two tiny chapels, one dedicated to Moses and the other to Elijah, just as Peter had suggested he should build for them after seeing them in the cloud with Jesus on the mountain top.
We enjoyed the peaceful garden outside the church before heading back down the mountain with the wild taxi drivers. Tonight is our last night by the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Tomorrow, Jerusalem!
And a post script: there were news reports at the end of the day yesterday of an exchange of rockets between Syria and Israel on the Golan Heights. We asked our guide Gila about it this morning and she said we were nowhere near the place where it happened, so I thought you might be pleased to know that.
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