Israel 2022 - Reflection #8 - Capernaum

 

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was to enter Capernaum. Our tour guide was from Nazareth and he jokingly talked about the "battle" between Capernaum and Nazareth to claim Jesus. His reasoning for Nazareth is that Jesus spent 30 years of his life in and around Nazareth, yet the approximately 3 years he spent in and around Capernaum gets all the headlines!  HAHAHAHA! YES, BUT, what an amazing three years.

I love Jesus! I want everyone to be clear about that. He is my Lord and Savior. But, as I read the New Testament, the one person I relate to the most is Peter and Capernaum is Peter's domain! 

So why do I relate to Peter?  I see a lot of myself in Peter, especially the Peter before the day of Pentecost. I don't know what your opinion of Peter is. Catholics consider him the first Pope. But, I consider him a "dumb fisherman" (no disrespect to Peter). In Acts 4:13, after Peter had just brilliantly proclaimed Jesus as the one and only way to receive salvation, "The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus." (emphasis added)

I'm not sure how you read this. I read this as saying here was Peter, a dumb fisherman, with no schooling, speaking with boldness, like he had an MDIV from Indiana Wesleyan! Before this, Peter was an ordinary man (Insert me), spoke without thinking (insert me), acted in boldness he couldn't back up (insert me), and rejected the Savior of the World on his way to die a death he didn't deserve (insert me). Yep, that's me. Jesus completely transformed Peter from this dumb fisherman into one of the world's greatest evangelists. I can only dream of being a man with Peter's gift of speaking and sharing the Gospel. Please, Jesus, transform me like you did Peter!

So, when I walked through the gates of Capernaum and saw the house where Jesus and Peter hung out, the synagogue near their home, the place of so much of Jesus' ministry, I really felt a powerful movement in my heart. This room (pictured below) is the place Jesus, probably with Peter by his side, healed a paralytic man. This is the place, Jesus, God in flesh, laid his head down at night when he wasn't traveling the region sharing the Good news, and Peter, my dumb fisherman, was there to see it all! 

This is a wall of the Synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus preached. See the difference in the color of the stone? The stone on the bottom is from the first century, the stone on top was a rebuilt Synagogue built on the same sight. 

This is the synagogue. JESUS PREACHED HERE!

 Why did Jesus come to Capernaum and not somewhere else?  This small town was located on the Via Maris, a major road in the middle east connecting travelers from the east with the rest of the Roman world. The stone here is a "mile marker" on this major thoroughfare. The other symbols are stones found from the first-century Synagogue.