Jesus' Ministry

Today we set out to encounter Jesus in his public ministry. We began our rather windy day with an early morning visit of our Lord at the Primacy of Peter. To help you enter in, if you read John 21:1-14 you will be familiar with Jesus asking Peter "do you love me?". We prayed on this very sight as the waves rolled in on a beautiful morning. The shores were filled with cround up shells from thousands of years ago. Peter's remorse was palpable there as we were all internally able to associate with Peter who had denied Jesus 3 times. We learned the significance of the 153 fish was because there are 153 species of fish in the sea. The number represents hoew Jesus' gospel is for all peoples. We moved from there to caperneaum were Jesus spent most of his public ministry. Here is where Peter's house was (the site of Jesus healing his mother in law. There is an octagon church excavated which became an early church for the Christians. Caperneaum was a prime site for Jesus to preach his message because it was a major passage way for caravans to going north and south. People would hear of his word and share it to great distances. Some 50 yards away is the synagogue where Jesus gave his bread of life discourse in John 6. We next celebrated mass in the mount of beatitudes. This is where Jesus Preached this sermon to over 5,000 men not including childrenthe acoustics are phenomenal and Jesus could have been easily heard From a boat or from the lower level of the hill. After a nice relaxing lunch we headed up the mountains to Caesarea Philippi where Peter made his first confession that Esus was the Christ. Here There is a huge rock face that holds the sight for ancient worship of foreign God like Zeus, pan,hermia , etc. there is a whole in which sacrifices were thrown into which also is a natural water spring. It was thought that if the sacrifice didn't come out with blood in the water then it was accepted by the god. Well after seeing this thank the Lord we believe in him. There were Rock niches all along the face of the wall where statues to gods were placed for worship. Interesting enough, this natural spring is a tributary into the Jordanfrom which Jesus was baptized. We all renewed our baptismal vows here inunison with Peter's declaration that Jesus was the Christ. All were overjoyed and playful with the renewed spirit of the natural refreshing spring and the renewal of spirit. We ended the day with a refreshing dinner and relaxing evening overlooking the sea of Galilee.