Come to Israel, Day 5 begins

     We woke to an absolutely beautiful sunrise on Lake Tiberius (Galilee).  Picture taken from our side window.

     Once again we had to be packed to leave, but this time we were able to place our tagged bags outside of our rooms for someone else to retrieve while we headed down to breakfast.  From there we went directly to the bus, which was already loaded with our bags.

     On our way to our next stop, we passed the town of Arimathea (as in Joseph of Arimathea).

      On its left is Ein Karem, a village in the mountains that once was all tress and vineyards.  It is said that, although Zechariah and Elizabeth lived in the valley, they also had a house on the hillside where they stayed in the warmer months (the hill country of the bible).  Here is where Mary visited Elizabeth when she was carrying Jesus, and where John the Baptist was born.

On our way to the site of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s house, we made a short stop at an Eastern Orthodox Church that was built in the 1800’s.  This church is called the Church of the Nativity of St. John – and has a tower on the right with a rounded spire.  We did not go inside, perhaps because Leo called it a mosque…  but he also said that water for the little town below runs under the mosque

  Leo also explained that the Virgin Mary would have come to the square in this little town for this source of water, before she went on her way uphill to visit at Elizabeth’s house.  He stated that it’s believed that Elizabeth hid here with John in the cleft of a rock, where the mosque is now, when the soldiers came to slaughter all the baby boys.

Close by, was another church with a tall, square tower that was built in the 17^th century by Spanish Franciscans, on the site where a much older church had fallen to ruins and was being used by the villager’s animals. The Franciscans recovered it and then built the present church on the same site, which had been determined to be the site of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s first century house, and it has an image of the visitation over the entrance doors.

This church is called both the Church of John the Baptist and the Church of the Visitation.

    As we walked toward the church, Leo told us that Zachariah’s priestly duties caused him to go into Jerusalem for two weeks at a time. He explained that the year-round duties of the priests were broken up into 24 shifts, each for 15 days.

      He then told of the story of the Angel who had appeared to Zachariah – whose name, he said, was Johanan

The square was open on one side and faced the side wall of the church on the other.  On that wall were tile plaques of the Our Father, in dozens of different languages.

Nearby, on a wall entering the church itself, were similar plaques of the Magnificat.

From here, we entered into the side of the church marked as St. John the Baptist.  We entered the church and passed beneath a huge mural of John, baptizing Jesus.   

Then we went downstairs under the (strange) side altar and directly into the area below the church that marks the birthplace of John.                         

  Just like in the other churches, we each had a chance to touch the birthplace marker, but here there were no lines.

Next we went back upstairs and into the church, where the main altar is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. 

To the left of the central altar is an icon of Jesus, and left of that a nave that actually opens to steps leading down into the natural grotto where we’d just been (by another route).  The church was filled with amazing paintings, icons and statues, and the entire area was tiled with several different patterns of a gorgeous blue and white tile that covered not only the walls, but even the columns. 

Viewed all at once, it was a LOT of tile and the mix of different patterns could make your eyes cross!   But the work was amazing!

Outside, we walked through lovely gardens back to our bus, and finally on to Jerusalem!