The sunrise this morning over the Dead Sea was beautiful. [caption id="attachment_576" align="alignright" width="270" caption="Sunrise over the Dead Sea"][/caption]   We traveled first to Masada, the Dead Sea citadel that the last survivor's of the Jewish rebellion against Rome fled to in 72 AD. I had read the story several times, but like everything in Israel it becomes 3-D when you see it first hand. Jill and I hiked up the mountain with a lot of the other PBU Kids. We took the goat path up that at points feels vertical. Jill did it in 28 minutes and I arrived two minutes later. Our tour guide described how he had come up to the mount after his basic training with his tank battalion and in a torchlight commissioning service swore that "Masada shall never fall." When the inhabitants of Masada realized that the 10th Roman Legion had breached their defenses they drew lots and committed suicide together to prevent the coming brutal retaliation by the soldiers. [caption id="attachment_571" align="alignright" width="300" caption="View from top of Masada. You can see one of 8 Roman camps below in a square to the left of the photo"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_574" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Jill on her way down Masada"][/caption] What struck me at Masada--other than that Jill is in better shape than I am? [caption id="attachment_575" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Roman ramp"][/caption] During the excavation the only writing that they found was a fragment of text from Ezekiel 37 that "these dry bones will live again." They had a Mikvah or ritual bath just like Corazin and Qumran. I am really struck by how widespread the ritual baths were among 2nd Temple Judaism. The oppressiveness of the culture that Jesus faced continues to hit me. Jesus was engaged in a multiple-front war: 1. Against the surface legalism of the Pharisees. (so much of Jesus' teaching) 2. Against the greed of the Saducees (Jesus' cleansing of the temple) 3. Against the violence and nationalism of the zealots (jesus' emphasis on forgiveness and loving our enemies... that is what Masada was all about. The Zealots led the rebellion against Rome.) The wonder is that it took them three years to kill Jesus. Herod the Great built Masada as part of a possible exit strategy outside of Judea in case his subjects rebelled against him. I continue to get 100s of tidbits. For instance, the grandson of Herod who was acclaimed as a god in Acts 12 was the only Herod to have minted a coin with his own visage on it. In other words, the Acts description fits what we know about him. [caption id="attachment_572" align="alignright" width="202" caption="En Gedi"][/caption] Next we traveled to En Gedi, a series of waterfalls that cascade down from the Judean highlands into the Dead Sea through an otherwise dry wadi. It is a little Garden of Eden situated in a "dry and thirsty land". We saw an Ibex on the trail up the wadi eating in the brushes. I Samuel tells us that David fled here [caption id="attachment_573" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Ibex at En Gedi"][/caption] when he was running from Saul. Jill's prayer that she would hear a Jewish child say "abba" was answered multiple times as we hiked up the wadi with numerous Jewish families. It has a very sweet sound to it. In the afternoon we went swimming in the Dead Sea together, or more accurately, we went sitting in the Dead Sea because the water is so buoyant that you can't sink even if you wanted to. I keep wondering if it would be a good idea to have a trip to Israel for our seeJesus Trainers and Partners to help them in their teaching. It gives you a grid allows you to hang a lot of stuff on. Who knows what God might do? Jill and I have always had a love for and burden for Jewish people, but that has grown again for me. A brief conversation with an Israeli soldier at McDonalds a couple of days ago still sticks in my head. Jill just hit overload. Everything is spinning, turning into a pile of rocks...and there are a lot of rocks in Israel. One of the neat things for Jill is that12 years ago she started reading through the Bible every year. So now she has a grid to hang all her reading on. Jill and I are people of the Book. We love the Word.